Objective: To evaluate the impact of serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) on the risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: Gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) majorly resides in the membrane of hepatocytes and plays a role as a marker of alcoholic liver disease. Recently, the serum level of GGT is also reported to be associated with vascular and non-vascular diseases including ischemic heart disease, stroke, metabolic syndrome, or dementia. As GGT catalyzes the transfer of glutamyl residue from glutathione to an amino acid, it could be correlated with oxidative stress and neurodegenerative disease. To investigate the relationship between serum GGT level and the risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD), we analyzed a longitudinal follow-up data of the Korean nationwide cohort from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) database.

Method: From the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) database, we collected information for individuals aged above 40 years and underwent national health check-up program in 2009. Among the total 6,892,098 population, we excluded individuals with heavy alcohol drinking, hepatobiliary and pancreatic disorders, and previous history of PD. We traced them for incident PD until December 31, 2016, and estimated hazard ratios (HR) for PD by applying Cox proportional hazard models with adjustment for age, sex, income, body mass index, smoking, alcohol drinking, and exercise. To investigate the possible risk modification by the effects of obesity and metabolic syndrome, we additionally analyzed the influence of GGT by either of them separately.

Results: A total of 6,098,405 individuals were finally included and incident PD was noted in 20,895 (0.34%) cases (9,512 men and 11,383 women). High GGT exerted sex-difference effect on PD risk; adjusted HR = 0.72 (0.67 – 0.76) in men and adjusted HR = 1.30 (1.23 – 1.37) in women when compared to lower GGT. Obesity and metabolic syndrome increased PD risk in both sexes. There was no interaction between GGT and either of two factors in men and between GGT and metabolic syndrome in women. However, there was an interaction between serum GGT and obesity for which both increased PD risk by the subadditive manner in women.

Conclusion: Serum GGT may have a significant but sex-different effect on the risk of PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/gamma-glutamyltransferase-and-the-risk-of-parkinsons-disease-a-national-health-service-big-data-analysis/