Parkinson's risk increased in bipolar disorder

Individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) have a higher incidence of Parkinson disease (PD), according to the results of a study published in Neurology. In addition, more frequent manic/mixed and depressive episodes increase this risk.

This conclusion was reported in a paper by Mao-Hsuan Huang and colleagues from the Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan. The researchers conducted a longitudinal study using data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database between 2001 and 2009 and included 56,340 patients with BD and 225,360 age- and sex-matched control individuals in the analysis. Study participants were followed to the end of 2011.

The study found that those with BD had a higher incidence of PD and a shorter duration from enrollment to diagnosis of PD than control individuals during the follow-up period (0.7% vs 0.1%). Patients with a higher frequency of psychiatric admission for BD had an increased risk of developing PD compared with those admitted less than once per year. The hazard ratio for developing PD for 1 to 2 manic/mixed episodes per year was 4.02, whereas for 1 to 2 depressive episodes per year, it was 2.67. For more than 2 episodes per year, the hazard ratios were 6.29 for manic/mixed and 6.19 for depressive.

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Reference:

Huang MH, Cheng CM, Huang KL, et al. Bipolar disorder and risk of Parkinson disease: a nationwide longitudinal study. Neurology. 2019;92(24):e2735-e2742*

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