Regular Exercise Can Cut Women’s Chances Of Developing Parkinson’s By 25%: Study

According to a recent research published in the journal Neurology, women who spent the most time either exercising or engaging in other physical activities had a 25 per cent lower rate of Parkinson’s disease prevalence compared to those who undertook the least amount of exercise. However, the study does not prove that exercise lowers the risk of developing Parkinson's disease. It only shows an association.

The research also found that 10 years before diagnosis, levels of exercise fell at a faster rate in those with Parkinson’s than in those without, likely due to early symptoms of the disease. Experts suggest the findings support the creation of exercise programmes to help lower the risk of Parkinson’s.

Study author Alexis Elbaz, of the Inserm research centre in Paris, France, said, “Exercise is a low-cost way to improve health overall, so our study sought to determine if it may be linked to a lower risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, a debilitating disease that has no cure. “Our results provide evidence for planning interventions to prevent Parkinson’s disease. With our large study, not only did we find that female participants who exercise the most have a lower rate of developing Parkinson’s disease, we also showed that early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease were unlikely to explain these findings, and instead that exercise is beneficial and may help delay or prevent this disease,” she added.

The study included 95,354 female participants, mostly teachers, with an average age of 49 who did not have Parkinson’s disease at the start of the study. The women were followed for three decades during which 1,074 of them developed Parkinson’s, and over the course of the study asked to complete up to six questionnaires. They were asked how far they walked and how many flights of stairs they climbed daily, how many hours they spent on household activities as well as how much time they spent doing moderate recreational activities such as gardening and more vigorous activities such as sports.

At the start of the study, those in the highest group had an average physical activity score of 71 METs-hours per week, while those in the lowest had an average score of 27. In the group that did the most exercise, there were 246 cases of Parkinson’s disease, compared to 286 cases in the lowest exercise group. They found this association remained when physical activity was assessed up to 15 or 20 years before diagnosis.