Gout and the risk of Parkinson’s disease in older adults: a study of U.S. Medicare data

BACKGROUND: In the presence of limited available data, our objective was to assess the association of gout with the risk of incident Parkinson’s disease (PD) in adults 65 years or older. METHODS: We used the 5% random sample of Medicare claims data from 2006 to 2012 to examine the association of gout with incident PD. The multivariable Cox regression model adjusted for demographics, comorbidity, and common cardiovascular disease and gout medications. We calculated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Sensitivity analyses adjusted for comorbidity categorically, or individually and for additional cardiovascular comorbidities. RESULTS: In a cohort study, 1.72 million Medicare beneficiaries were eligible. The mean age was 75 years (standard deviation [SD], 7.6), 58% were female, 86% were White and 37% had Charlson-Romano comorbidity index score of ≥2. We found that 22,636 people developed incident PD, 1129 with gout and 21,507 without gout. The respective crude incidence rates of incident PD were 3.7 vs. 2.2 per 1000 person-years. We found that gout was associated with 1.14-times higher hazard ratio (95% CI, 1.07, 1.21) of PD in the main analysis; findings were confirmed in sensitivity analyses. We noted that the risk differed slightly by age; ages 65–75, 75–85 and > 85 had hazard ratios of incident PD with gout of 1.27 (95% CI, 1.16, 1.39), 1.07 (95% CI, 0.97, 1.16) and 0.97 (95% CI, 0.79, 1.20), respectively, but no gender or race differences were noted. CONCLUSIONS: Gout was associated with a higher risk of incident PD in older adults, with the risk being significant in the age group 65–75 years. Future studies need to assess the mechanisms of this increased risk. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12883-018-1234-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.