AUTHOR=Lee Jieun , Park Suyeon , Jang Wooyoung 

TITLE=Serum zinc deficiency could be associated with dementia conversion in Parkinson’s disease

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2023.1132907

DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2023.1132907

ISSN=1663-4365

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Background</title><p>Association between heavy metals and Parkinson’s disease (PD) is well noted, but studies regarding heavy metal levels and non-motor symptoms of PD, such as PD’s dementia (PD-D), are lacking.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>In this retrospective cohort study, we compared five serum heavy metal levels (Zn, Cu, Pb, Hg, and Mn) of newly diagnosed PD patients (<italic>n</italic> = 124). Among 124 patients, 40 patients were later converted to Parkinson’s disease dementia (PD-D), and 84 patients remained without dementia during the follow-up time. We collected clinical parameters of PD and conducted correlation analysis with heavy metal levels. PD-D conversion time was defined as the initiation time of cholinesterase inhibitors. Cox proportional hazard models were used to identify factors associated with dementia conversion in PD subjects.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Zn deficiency was significant in the PD-D group than in the PD without dementia group (87.53 ± 13.20 vs. 74.91 ± 14.43, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01). Lower serum Zn level was significantly correlated with K-MMSE and LEDD at 3 months (<italic>r</italic> = −0.28, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01; <italic>r</italic> = 0.38, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01). Zn deficiency also contributed to a shorter time to dementia conversion (HR 0.953, 95% CI 0.919 to 0.988, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.01).</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>This clinical study suggests that a low serum Zn level can be a risk factor for developing PD-D and could be used as a biological marker for PD-D conversion.</p></sec>