Anti-diabetic drugs delay the onset of Parkinson’s. A research conducted on 8,000 patients by the Parkinson’s Center and parkinsonisms of Asst Gaetano Pini-Cto of Milan, with the contribution of the Grisons Foundation for Parkinson’s disease, showed that this pathology manifests itself on average 6 years later in patients taking drugs against diabetes. The research, published in the ‘Journal of Neurology’, lays the foundations for the development of new neuro-protective therapies. It is estimated that in Italy people affected by Parkinson’s disease are about 450 thousand, and constantly increasing (they were 230 thousand in 1990).
“The study suggests a neuro-protective property of anti-diabetic drugs and opens up the prospect of administering anti-diabetic drugs, such as metformin, which can also be taken by those who do not suffer from this pathology, in people predisposed to developing the disease Parkinson’s with the aim of delaying its onset – observes Gianni Pezzoli, first author of the research, president of the Grisons Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease and of the Italian Parkinsonian Association – The data collected is very significant and encourages us to investigate not only the preventive capacity of anti-diabetic drugs but also their role in reducing the progression of Parkinson’s when it has already occurred”.
The research, based on a survey of over 8,000 patients visited at the Parkinson Center between 2010 and 2019, has revealed that in patients with diabetes, who take drugs for this pathology, the onset of Parkinson’s occurs after the age of 66, while in non-diabetics Parkinson’s manifests itself around the age of 60.
The research was made possible thanks to the database of the Parkinson and parkinsonism Center of Asst Gaetano Pini-Cto of Milan in the Lombardy Region, which currently has 37,000 patients. The richness and quality of the cases collected allowed us to extract significant data on the interaction between diabetes and Parkinson’s. “This publication lays the groundwork for initiating very robust comparative clinical trials in the future in which anti-diabetic medicines are administered to people with Parkinson’s risk factors, such as having the disease in the family, or pre-diabetic symptoms.” onset of the disease such as ‘nocturnal agitation’, reduced sense of smell, and even more generic ‘signs’ such as constipation and mild depression”. says Ioannis Isaias, director of the Parkinson’s Center and parkinsonisms of Asst Gaetano Pini-Cto of Milan
The study was conducted on 8,120 Parkinsonian patients visited at the Parkinson Center between 2010 and 2019. “It was observed that the 413 patients with diabetes, who were taking drugs for this pathology, developed Parkinson’s on average after the age of 66. In In 7,707 non-diabetic people, the disease arose shortly after the age of 60 – the researchers remark – The numbers therefore suggest a role for anti-diabetic drugs in delaying the onset of Parkinson’s and are in line with other publications in the scientific literature on the neuro -protective, observed in animal models, of metformin (a drug that could be taken by non-diabetics)”. In this sense, the study by the Parkinson Center “is a solid basis” for further research to investigate the neuro-protective properties of antidiabetic drugs (for example those which are generally defined as ‘glucagon substitutes’), “as well as their ability to reduce the natural progression of Parkinson’s disease,” conclude the scientists.
