Exercise May Help Ward Off Parkinson's Disease

Researchers still looking for cause of the apparent benefit.

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, April 25, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

WEDNESDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests more evidence of yet another benefit of regular exercise: It could keep Parkinson's disease at bay.

The study doesn't conclusively link exercise to better brain health, but scientists think the connection could be more than a fluke.

"The people who seemed to have a lower risk of disease were engaging in moderate to vigorous activity for two to three hours a week," said study leader Evan Thacker, a research assistant at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Parkinson's disease is a movement disorder that worsens over time and causes a variety of symptoms, including disruptions in movement, as neurons in the brain deteriorate. The cause of the disease is not known, and there is no cure, but drug therapy and surgery can help manage symptoms, according to the Parkinson' Disease Foundation.

An estimated 1.5 million Americans have the disease, and 60,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, according to the foundation. Among famous people who have the condition are the actor Michael J. Fox and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.

In what Thacker called the largest research project of its kind, researchers looked at the results of a federal cancer study that followed 63,348 men and 79,977 women from 1992 to 2001. Of the participants -- with an average age of 63 -- 413 of them developed Parkinson's disease.

The researchers looked at exercise levels and tried to determine if they affected the rate of Parkinson's disease after adjusting the numbers to reflect the possible influence of factors such as age, gender and smoking.

People who exercised more than 75 percent of their fellow study participants were 20 percent less likely to develop Parkinson's, compared to those who didn't exercise. The risk of the disease was 40 percent lower in those who took part in the highest levels of moderate to vigorous activity, defined as exercise such as jogging, lap swimming, tennis and bicycling, the study found.

However, there's one caveat -- the researchers found no indication that physical activity at age 40 affected the risk of developing Parkinson's.