Vitamin D May Impact Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a brain disorder that causes tremors and difficulty with movement and walking, and most commonly affects people over the age of 50.  Masahiko Suzuki,from the Jikei University School of Medicine (Japan), and colleagues have previously observed that higher circulating Vitamin D (as measured by serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D]) and the vitamin D receptor (VDR) FokI CC genotype associate with milder PD.  In their current study, the resesarchers enrolled 114 Parkinson’s patients, ages 45 to 85 years, in a study in which 56 subjects took 1,200IUs of vitamin D per day for 12 months (with the remaining 58 subjects taking a placebo for the same length of time).  At the beginning of the study, about 45 patients in each group scored a 1 or 2 on a five-point scale that measures disability from Parkinson’s disease (where a score of 1 represents the least disability, while a 5 is bedridden).  At the end of the year, the researchers found that 16% of the subjects taking the supplements did not worsen on the assessment scale; 7 people whose symptoms were stable in the group taking the placebo. When the team looked at the patients’ vitamin D receptor genes, they found that people with the gene version known as FokI TT benefited the most from supplements, followed by those with the FokI CT variant, compared to people in the placebo group. People with the FokI CC genotype did not benefit at all.