Objective: To report on the patterns of nutritional intake in an Australian Parkinson’s disease (PD) cohort.

Background: There is limited information about the dietary habits of patients, or any associations of diet with clinical PD features.

Method: 103 PD patients and 80 healthy controls (HCs) completed an extensive validated food frequency questionnaire. Dietary questionnaires allowed for extrapolation of nutritional intake, including caloric, protein, carbohydrate, lipid, fibre, fruit and vegetable intake. Participants also completed a variety of PD-validated non-motor symptom questionnaires to determine relationships between dietary patterns and clinical disease features.

Results: Mean daily caloric intake did not differ considerably between PD patients and HCs (11,131 kJ/day vs 10,188 kJ/day). However, PD patients reported greater total carbohydrate intake (279 g/day vs 232 g/day, p=0.034), which was largely attributable to increased daily sugar intake (153 g/day vs 119 g/day, p=0.003). PD patients who experienced chronic pain, depression, or reported an impulse control disorder were found to consume more sugar (all p<0.05). Increased sugar consumption was also associated with an increase in non-motor symptoms, poorer quality of life, increased constipation severity and greater daily levodopa dose requirement. Interestingly, PD patients also consumed less alcohol than HCs (9 g/day vs 13 g/day p=0.038), with several clinical correlations identified.

Conclusion: We provide novel, clinically important insights into the dietary habits of PD patients. These insights may inform simple dietary modifications for PD patients that could alleviate disease symptoms and reduce severity.

This abstract is partially reproduced from a planned presentation at the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists, Annual Society Meeting, Melbourne, Australia, 19^th-22^nd May 2020

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