Objective: To determine the risk factors associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD) development in the Nigerian PD Research (NPDR) cohort

Background: PD is widely believed to be a complex interplay between genetic predisposition and environmental factors. Putative environmental risk factors such as pesticide exposure, head injury and mood disorders as well as protective factors such as coffee and cigarette smoking have been mainly documented in populations in high-income countries and mainly in Caucasian populations.

Method: The NPDR network is an ongoing nationwide project recruiting persons with PD (defined by the United Kingdom PD Society Brain Bank criteria) and age-matched controls into a disease registry. In addition to demographic, clinical and PD-specific parameters, an adapted form of the mini-environmental risk questionnaire is used to assess exposure to chemicals, caffeine intake, heavy metals, pesticides, head injury, cigarette smoking and in females, oophorectomy.

Results: Data for 3,872 participants was available for this report, comprising 33.9% male and 66.1% female sex. The mean age at study of PD was 63.8 years (SD 10.188) while the mean age of controls was 62.36(SD 9.506).

Lower PD rates were seen with cigarette smoking exposure (p = 0.000), caffeine intake (p=0.006) while there was no difference in head trauma, mood disorders and exposure to chemicals/fumes among PD and controls (p >0.05).

Exposure to pesticides, chemicals and heavy metals was found to be associated with less risk of PD when compared to controls(p=0.000). There was no difference in occupational exposure to pesticides between PD and controls however, there was a significantly greater home exposure to pesticides in controls than in PD (p=0.000).

Conclusion: Our results for protective factors such as caffeine and cigarette smoking align with prior publications worldwide. The finding of greater pesticide exposure in healthy controls requires strategic population-based studies for verification and to determine risk factors unique to our African population.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/enviromental-risk-factors-for-parkinsons-disease-in-the-nigeria-parkinsons-disease-research-network/