BP-lowering drug helps prevent Parkinson’s disease

Treatment with angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) appears to reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in patients newly diagnosed with hypertension, reports a recent study.

“ARBs, which are commonly used antihypertensives, have been proposed to lower the risk of PD by reducing oxidative stress based on animal and in vitro studies,” said the authors, who performed this retrospective cohort study to test this association in patients with newly diagnosed hypertension.

Overall, 107,207 patients with newly diagnosed hypertension between 2001 and 2013 were included in this study. The authors calculated the hazard ratios (HRs) for PD among patients administered ARB compared with those who never used the drug and among five subgroups receiving different cumulative ARB dosage.

Over a median observation period of 8.4 years, 527 (1.1 percent) PD cases were identified among patients with ARB treatment. Among those without ARB treatment, a total of 1,255 (2.2 percent) PD cases were recorded during a median observation period of 6.8 years.

In general, the ARB-treated group had a statistically lower risk of developing PD (HR, 0.56, 95 percent confidence interval, 0.51‒0.63) compared to the non-ARB-treated group.

“ARB treatment was associated with a statistically important reduction of PD risk in patients with newly diagnosed hypertension,” the authors said. “Therefore, ARB may constitute an effective neuroprotective strategy to lower PD risk in such patients.”