- Les personnes qui ont subi une crise cardiaque courent un risque accru d’accident vasculaire cérébral et de démence vasculaire. Cependant, une nouvelle étude a montré qu’elles risquent moins de développer la maladie de Parkinson.
- Une vaste étude nationale menée au Danemark a révélé que le risque de maladie de Parkinson était modérément plus faible chez les personnes ayant eu une crise cardiaque que dans la population générale.
Les personnes qui ont eu une crise cardiaque pourraient être légèrement moins susceptibles que les personnes de la population générale de développer la maladie de Parkinson plus tard dans leur vie, selon une nouvelle recherche publiée récemment dans la revue .Journal of the American Heart Associationun journal en libre accès, évalué par les pairs, de l’American Heart Association.
La maladie de Parkinson est un trouble cérébral caractérisé par une perte progressive des mouvements physiques, y compris des tremblements, une élocution lente ou mal articulée, et/ou une rigidité ou une amplitude de mouvement limitée pour la marche et d’autres activités physiques. La maladie de Parkinson est incurable et elle est également associée à des changements de comportement, à la dépression, à des pertes de mémoire et à la fatigue. Le parkinsonisme secondaire, qui présente des symptômes similaires à ceux de la maladie de Parkinson, peut être causé par un accident vasculaire cérébral, des médicaments psychiatriques ou cardiovasculaires, ou d’autres maladies.
“Nous avons précédemment constaté qu’à la suite d’une crise cardiaque, le risque de complications neurovasculaires telles que accident vasculaire cérébral ischémique [clot-caused stroke] ou démence vasculaire est nettement augmenté, donc la constatation d’un risque plus faible de maladie de Parkinson était quelque peu surprenante “, a déclaré l’auteur principal de l’étude, Jens Sundbøll, M.D., Ph.D., des départements d’épidémiologie clinique et de cardiologie du Aarhus University Hospital in Aarhus, Denmark. “These findings indicate that the risk of Parkinson’s disease is at least not increased following a heart attack and should not be a worry for patients or a preventive focus for clinicians at follow-up.
“It is not known whether this inverse relationship with risk of Parkinson’s disease extends to people who have had a heart attack. Therefore, we examined the long-term risk of Parkinson’s disease and secondary parkinsonism among heart attack survivors,” Sundbøll said.
The researchers examined health registries from the Danish National Health Service. They compared the risk of Parkinson’s disease and secondary parkinsonism among about 182,000 patients who had a first-time heart attack between 1995 and 2016 (average age 71 years old; 62% male) and more than 909,000 controls matched for age, sex and year of heart attack diagnosis. The results were adjusted for a variety of factors known to influence the risk of either heart attack or Parkinson’s disease.
Over a maximum continual follow-up of 21 years, after adjusting for a wide range of potential confounding factors, the analysis found that, when compared to the control group:
- there was a 20% lower risk of Parkinson’s disease among people who had a heart attack; and
- a 28% lower risk of secondary parkinsonism among those who had a heart attack.
“For physicians treating patients following a heart attack, these results indicate that cardiac rehabilitation should be focused on preventing ischemic stroke, vascular dementia and other cardiovascular diseases such as a new heart attack and heart failure, since the risk of Parkinson’s appears to be decreased in these patients, in comparison to the general population,” Sundbøll said.
Heart attack and Parkinson’s disease share certain risk factors, with higher risk found among elderly men and lower risk among people who drink more coffee and are more physically active. Interestingly, however, some classic risk factors for a heart attack – such as smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes – are associated with a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease.
In general, more heart attack patients smoke and have elevated cholesterol, either of which may explain the slightly reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease among heart attack survivors.
“There are very few diseases in this world in which smoking decreases risk: Parkinson’s disease is one, and ulcerative colitis is another. Smoking increases the risk of the most common diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease and pulmonary disease and is definitely not good for your health,” Sundbøll noted.
One limitation of the study is that there was not enough information about smoking and high cholesterol levels among the participants, which may have influenced the findings. In addition, the study population was vastly of white race/ethnicity, according to Sundbøll, therefore, the findings may not be generalizable to people from diverse racial or ethnic groups.
Reference: “Risk of Parkinson Disease and Secondary Parkinsonism in Myocardial Infarction Survivors” by Jens Sundbøll, Szimonetta Komjáthiné Szépligeti, Péter Szentkúti, Kasper Adelborg, Erzsébet Horváth‐Puhó, Lars Pedersen, Victor W. Henderson and Henrik Toft Sørensen, 16 February 2022, Journal of the American Heart Association.
DOI: 10.1161/JAHA.121.022768
Co-authors are Szimonetta Komjáthiné Szépligeti, M.Sc.; Péter Szentkúti, M.Sc.; Kasper Adelborg, M.D., Ph.D.; Erzsébet Horváth-Puhó, M.Sc., Ph.D.; Lars Pedersen, Ph.D.; Victor W. Henderson, M.D., M.S.; and Henrik Toft Sørensen, M.D., Ph.D., D.M.Sc.
The study was funded by the Lundbeck Foundation.
