People who have had a heart attack are at increased risk of stroke and vascular dementia; however, a new study found they may be less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. A large, nationwide study in Denmark found that the risk of Parkinson’s disease was moderately lower among people who have had a heart attack than among the general population.

Parkinson’s disease is a brain disorder characterized by progressive loss of physical movement, including tremors, slow or slurred speech, and/or stiffness or limited range of motion for walking and other physical activities. There is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, and it is also associated with behavioral changes, depression, memory loss and fatigue. Secondary parkinsonism, which has symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, may be caused by stroke, psychiatric or cardiovascular medications, or other illness.

«We have previously found that following a heart attack, the risk of neurovascular complications such as ischemic stroke [clot-caused stroke] or vascular dementia is markedly increased, so the finding of a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease was somewhat surprising,» said lead study author Jens Sundboll, M.D., Ph.D., from the departments of clinical epidemiology and cardiology at the Aarhus University Hospital in Aarhus, Denmark. «These findings indicate that the risk of Parkinson’s disease is at least not increased following a heart attack and should not be a worry for patients or a preventive focus for clinicians at follow-up.

«It is not known whether this inverse relationship with risk of Parkinson’s disease extends to people who have had a heart attack. Therefore, we examined the long-term risk of Parkinson’s disease and secondary parkinsonism among heart attack survivors,» Sundboll said.

The researchers examined health registries from the Danish National Health Service. They compared the risk of Parkinson’s disease and secondary parkinsonism among about 182,000 patients who had a first-time heart attack between 1995 and 2016 (average age 71 years old; 62% male) and more than 909,000 controls matched for age, sex and year of heart attack diagnosis. The results were adjusted for a variety of factors known to influence the risk of either heart attack or Parkinson’s disease.

Over a maximum continual follow-up of 21 years, after adjusting for a wide range of potential confounding factors, the analysis found that, when compared to the control group:

• there was a 20% lower risk of Parkinson’s disease among people who had a heart attack; and
• a 28% lower risk of secondary parkinsonism among those who had a heart attack.

«For physicians treating patients following a heart attack, these results indicate that cardiac rehabilitation should be focused on preventing ischemic stroke, vascular dementia and other cardiovascular diseases such as a new heart attack and heart failure, since the risk of Parkinson’s appears to be decreased in these patients, in comparison to the general population,» Sundboll said.

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Materials provided by American Heart Association. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.