Association of visual impairment with risk for future Parkinson's disease
Zhuoting Zhu, Wenyi Hu, Huan Liao, Zachary Tan, Yifan Chen, Danli Shi, Xianwen Shang, Xueli Zhang, Yu Huang, Honghua Yu, Wei Wang, Mingguang He, Xiaohong Yang
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Although visual dysfunction is one of the most common non-motor symptoms among patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), it is not known whether visual impairment (VI) predates the onset of clinical PD. Therefore, we aim to examine the association of VI with the future development of PD in the UK Biobank Study. METHODS: The UK Biobank Study is one of the largest cohort studies of health, enrolling over 500,000 participants aged 40-69 years between 2006 and 2010 across the UK. VI was defined as a habitual distance visual acuity (VA) worse than 0·3 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (LogMAR) in the better-seeing eye. Incident cases of PD were determined by self report data, hospital admission records or death records, whichever came first. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to investigate the association between VI and the risk of incident PD. FINDINGS: = 0·005) in the VI group. These results were consistent in the sensitivity analysis, where incident PD cases diagnosed within one year after the baseline assessment were excluded. INTERPRETATION: This cohort study found that VI was associated with an increased risk of incident PD, suggesting that VI may serve as a modifiable risk factor for prevention of future PD.