Results from a large population-based cohort in the United Kingdom confirm and extend findings from an earlier study from Taiwan that implicated hepatitis C, but not B, in elevation of Parkinson's disease risk. Infection with either hepatitis B or hepatitis C increases the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD), according to study published in the March 29 online edition of Neurology. The results from a large population-based cohort in the United Kingdom confirm and extend findings from another study from Taiwan that implicated hepatitis C, but not B, in elevation of PD risk.
The mechanism is unknown, but the new data raise the possibility that infection primes the nervous system for development of PD. First author of the new study, an epidemiologist at the Nuffield department of population health at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and her colleagues looked for the same link in…
