Objective: Establish the relationship between nutritional indicators and sleep quality index in patients with Parkinson disease.

Background: One of the most frequent non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease is related with sleep disorders. It is well known that nutrition can be related with the progression of the disease and that nutrition plays an important role in sleep quality. But little is known about the association between nutritional indicators and sleep quality in Parkinson’s.

Method: We recruited patients from the outpatient movement disorders clinic, ages 30 to 89, with diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson disease. Nutritional indicators evaluated were: Actual Weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), Muscular Arm Circumference (MAC), Muscular Arm Area (MAA) and Waist-Hip Index (ICC). Seep Quality was calculated with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Mann-Whitney’s U test was used to prove normality of data and Spearman Correlation to contrast variables.

Results: We included 31 patients (58.1% male, mean age 63 ± 11years) with a mean actual weight of 69.7 ± 15.8 kg, mean BMI of 27.5 ± 4.8 kg/m2, mean MAA 39.1 ± 11.4 cm² and MAC 21.9 ± 3.2 cm. When measuring nutritional status by BMI, we found that 58% of the population had overweight and obesity, 32% were in normal weight and 10% had low weight. Even though most of the patients had overweight, around 44% were in risk of protein malnutrition and 26% had low muscularity. The Sleep Quality Index mean was 9.1± 4.3 and 36% deserves medical attention and treatment, 33% needs medical attention, 16% had severe sleep problems and 16% had no sleep problems.
Negative correlations and significant results were observed between Sleep quality index and the actual weight (r=-.545; p=0.002), BMI (r=-.383; p=0.033), MAC (r=-.436; p=0.016) and MAA (r=-.431; p=0.015).

Conclusion: The results obtained in this study have shown that sleep quality can be affected by nutritional indicators, specially BMI because in our results patients with overweight and obesity were the ones that needed medical attention and treatment in their sleep quality. More results are needed to prove if the lack of sleep increases anxiety towards food consumption in Parkinson’s disease population.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/sleep-quality-and-nutrition-effects-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/