Independent and Joint Associations of Tea Consumption and Smoking with Parkinson’s Disease Risk in Chinese Adults

BACKGROUND: Existing limited evidence suggests that smoking and tea consumption may be associated with a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, less is known about the independent and joint roles of these two habits, which are often clustered among Chinese, on PD risk. OBJECTIVE: To prospectively examine the independent and joint association of tea consumption and smoking with the risk of PD. METHODS: The China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) study recruited 512,725 participants aged 30 to 79 years from ten areas across China since 2004. Information on smoking and tea consumption was collected at baseline, and PD cases were ascertained by linkage to the national health insurance system and death registry. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and corresponding 95%confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: During a median of 10.8 years of follow-up, 922 PD cases were recorded. Compared with participants who never consumed tea, the HR (95%CI) for daily consumers was 0.68 (0.55, 0.84). Compared with participants who never or occasionally smoked, the HR (95%CI) for current smokers was 0.66 (0.53, 0.82). Those who had a clustering habit of smoking and tea consumption had a 38%(HR = 0.62; 95%CI: 0.49, 0.79) lower PD risk than those who consumed none. However, there were no statistically significant multiplicative or additive interaction for tea consumption and smoking on PD risk. CONCLUSION: We found that smoking and daily tea consumption were independently inversely associated with the risk of PD.