Cerebrospinal fluid levels of thiamine in patients with Parkinson's disease

Thiamine is an essential cofactor for several important enzymes involved in brain oxidative metabolism, such as the alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase complex (KGDHC), pyruvate-dehydrogenase complex, and transketolase. The act ivity of KGDHC is decreased in the substantia nigra or patients with Parkin son's disease (PD). We measured cerebrospinal (CSF) levels of thiamine-diph osphate, thiamine-monophosphate, free thiamine, and total thiamine, using i on-pair reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography, in 24 PD pat ients and 40 matched controls. The mean CSF levels of thiamine-derivatives did not differ significantly from those of controls, with the exception of lower CSF free thiamine levels in the PD-patient group. PD patients under l evodopa therapy had significantly higher CSF thiamine-diphosphate and total thiamine than those not treated with this drug. CSF thiamine levels were n ot correlated with age, age at onset, duration of the disease, scores of th e Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale of the Hoehn and Yahr staging in t he PD group. These results suggest that low CSF free thiamine levels could be related with the risk for PD. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.