DIETARY ANTIOXIDANTS AND PARKINSONS-DISEASE - THE ROTTERDAM STUDY

Objective: To investigate whether high dietary intake of antioxidants decreases the risk of Parkinson disease (PD). Setting: The community-b ased Rotterdam Study, the Netherlands. Design: The cross-sectional stu dy formed part of a large community-based study in which all participa nts were individually screened for parkinsonism and were administered a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. The study population consisted of 5342 independently living individuals without dementia be tween 55 and 95 years of age, including 31 participants with PD (Hoehn -Yahr stages 1-3). Results: The odds ratio for PD was 0.5 (95% confide nce interval [CI], 0.2-0.9) per 10-mg daily dietary vitamin E intake, 0.6 (95% CI, 0.3-1.3) per 1-mg beta carotene intake, 0.9 (95% CI, 0.4- 1.9) per 100-mg vitamin C intake, and 0.9 (95% CI, 0.7-1.2) per 10-mg flavonoids intake, all adjusted for age, sex, smoking habits, and ener gy intake. The association with vitamin E intake was dose dependent (P for trend = .03). To assess whether the association was different in participants with more advanced disease, we excluded those with PD who had a Hoehn-Yahr stage of 2.5 or 3. This did not fundamentally alter the results. Conclusion: Our data suggest that a high intake of dietar y vitamin E may protect against the occurrence of PD.