I’ve heard of the expression guilty by association and have even been pegged as such, years ago, by my parents but, recent research suggests that relatives of Parkinson’s patients are more at risk of Parkinson’s as well (minus the guilty part of course).  I first read about the study from Medscape.  The basis of the study states that relatives of those with Parkinson’s, especially if they developed Parkinson’s at an early age, are at a much higher risk to develop Parkinson’s disease.  

“The study showed that the overall increased risk for all dementias among relatives of patients with PD was about 30%, said James H. Bower, MD, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, who is one of the study’s coauthors. However, among relatives of patients who developed PD at 66 years or younger, the increased risk for dementia was about 70%, he said.”

These finding may supply a research thread that may possibly help us to understand Parkinson’s Disease a little bit more.  It also suggests that we need to dig a little bit deeper to find out if there is truly a connection or that it may be chance.  As with all research time, and continued testing will help answer these questions.  To read in more detail about the study please visit: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/564287

This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 10:36 pm and is filed under General, Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.