Hospital-treated infections and subsequent Parkinson’s disease risk: a register-based sibling comparison study

Abstract

Serious infections may result in greater risk of Parkinson’s disease. However, high-quality cohort studies focusing on a potential causal role of different types and sites of infection are lacking. Gastrointestinal infections are of a particular interest due to growing evidence implicating gut dysbiosis in Parkinson’s disease aetiology. This population-based cohort study used the Swedish Total Population Register to identify individuals born during 1944-1977 and resident in Sweden between 1990 and 2018 (N=3,698,319). Hospital-treated infections at ages 21-30 and 31-40 years were identified from the National Patient Register. Participants were followed to identify Parkinson’s disease diagnoses from age 41 years up to December 31, 2018, when the oldest individual reached 75 years. Cox regression with a sibling comparison design to tackle familial genetic and environmental confounding was used to derive hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for each infection site, type, or any infections at ages 21-30 and 31-40 years. During a median follow-up of 15.4 years, 8,815 unique Parkinson’s disease diagnoses were accrued, with a crude rate of 17.3 (95% confidence interval (CI) 17.0, 17.7) per 100,000 person-years. After controlling for shared familial factors, hospital-treated gastrointestinal and respiratory infections between 21 to 30 years of age were associated with a greater risk of Parkinson’s disease (HRs 1.35 [95% CI: 1.05, 1.75] and 1.45 [95% CI: 1.08, 1.95], respectively); no association was found for any infections at age 31-40 (hazard ratio (HR) 1.05 [95% CI: 0.93, 1.19]). After adjustment, no statistically significant associations were observed for other sites including genitourinary, and skin. These findings suggest that hospital-treated infections of the gastrointestinal tract and lungs, both of which may have an influence on the gut microbiome, by age 30 years may be risk factors for Parkinson’s disease.