Common Medications Tied to Older Age at Onset of Parkinson Disease

FRIDAY, April 25, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Multiple common medications are associated with a considerable delay of Parkinson disease (PD) symptom onset, according to a study published online March 6 in the Journal of Neurology.

Camille Malatt, M.D., from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and colleagues evaluated the association of treatment with antihypertensives, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), and statins, as well as smoking and family history of PD with age at onset (AAO) of clinical symptoms. Analysis included data from 1,201 initial encounters.

The researchers found that exposure to all studied medications showed a strong correlation with older PD AAO. Smoking and family history, however, correlated with younger AAO. Exposures to adrenergic blockers (AB; β = 5.7), statins (β = 5.6), and NSAIDs (β = 4.1) were the strongest independent predictors of older PD AAO. The largest average delay of PD AAO (at 72.3 ± 10.1 years) was seen among patients who were started on AB prior to onset of PD symptoms, which was almost 10 years later versus those not on AB (62.7 ± 10.7 years) or those who started taking AB after onset of symptoms (63.0 ± 10.6 years).

“The medications we studied have common features that may explain their effect on Parkinson disease, including the ability to control inflammation,” senior author Michele Tagliati, M.D., also from Cedars-Sinai, said in a statement. “This research suggests that the medications studied also help control the cellular stress response and brain inflammation, which may have a prominent role in delaying the development of Parkinson disease.”

Several authors disclosed ties to industry.

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