Incidence of Parkinson's disease among hospital patients with methamphetamine‐use disorders

Abstract

Because methamphetamine exposure to experimental animals can damage brain dopamine neurones, we examined whether hospital patients diagnosed with methamphetamine-related disorders might have greater risk of subsequent admission with a Parkinson's disease diagnosis. This was a population-based cohort study using all statewide inpatient hospital discharge records from July 1, 1990, through June 30, 2000, in California, USA, in which subjects aged at least 50 years were followed for up to 10 years. Individuals with reported methamphetamine-related conditions (n = 1,863; ICD-9 codes 304.4, 305.7, 969.7, and E854.2) were matched on demographic variables and follow-up time with those with primary appendicitis conditions (n = 9,315). The appendicitis group had a Parkinson's disease incidence rate no different than the rate found among members of a large health maintenance organization in California. Cox regression procedures were used to estimate group differences in the rates of receiving a subsequent inpatient diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (ICD-9 332.0). The methamphetamine group showed increased risk of a subsequent admission with Parkinson's disease compared with that of the matched appendicitis group (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.65, 95% CI, 1.17-5.98, P= 0.019). Study limitations include a population limited to hospital admissions, an uncertainty regarding diagnostic validity of the ICD-9 code 332.0 (Parkinson's disease), and a small number of incident cases with suspected Parkinson's disease. We strongly emphasize the preliminary nature of the findings. Nevertheless, these data, requiring replication, provide some evidence that methamphetamine users might be at greater than normal risk for developing Parkinson's disease.

Persistent Microstructural Deficits of Internal Capsule in One-Year Abstinent Male Methamphetamine Users: a Longitudinal Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study

“…Further studies are needed to explore the relationship of the persistent deficits of WM tracts surrounding the basal ganglia and motor function (Caligiuri and Buitenhuys 2005). Two epidemiological studies found prior MA use was a risk factor of later onset Parkinson's disease (Callaghan et al 2010(Callaghan et al , 2012. Some clinical studies using psycho-motor tests observed motor dysfunction in stimulants users (Kalechstein et al 2003;Volkow et al 2001b).…”

Biphasic dopamine regulation in mesoaccumbens pathway in response to non-contingent binge and escalating methamphetamine regimens in the Wistar rat

“…2d). Given this potential vulnerability in the SN and that MA abusers may be at greater risk to develop Parkinson's disease (Callaghan et al 2010), it will be important to follow up the incidence of Parkinson's disease in MA addicts who will survive to 62 years of age, the average age of onset of the disease.…”

Amphetamine-related drugs neurotoxicity in humans and in experimental animals: Main mechanisms

“…Over the years, several clinical reports have found that patients diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases, such as PD, had a higher rate of exposure to amphetamine-related drugs at a young age, compared with the general population (Parrott et al, 2004;Callaghan et al, 2010;Christine et al, 2010;Curtin et al, 2015). Since several clinical studies recognize that PD has multiple origins, one hypothesis is that amphetamine-related drugs may be part of the wide array of factors leading to the dopaminergic neuron degeneration that causes the disease (Obeso et al, 2010).…”

“…METH is directly neurotoxic to dopaminergic neurons and hence its abuse may increase the risk of developing PD by 2 to 3 fold (Callaghan 2010(Callaghan , 2012Curtin et al, 2015). METH can also result in neurotoxicity to other neurons including serotonergic (Krasnova and Cadet, 2009;Silva et al, 2014), glutamatergic (Simões et al, 2007;Miyazaki et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2014), GABAergic (Zhang et al, 2006;Mizoguchi and Yamada, 2011;Shen et al, 2013), as well as cholinergic neurons (Lim et al, 2014).…”