| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 環境醫學研究所 === 100 === introduction: Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common progressive neurodegenerative disease in Taiwan. It is associated with the desecration of dopamine-generated neurons in the substantial nigra in the brain, but actual etiology remains unknown. Some animal studies found that arsenic can pass through the blood brain barrier, aggregate in the substantia nigra area, and inhibit the synthesis and release of dopamine. Therefore, exposure to arsenic may be related to the occurrence of PD, but few epidemiological data are available on this issue. We conduct a study to evaluate the association between arsenic exposure through drinking water and the occurrence of PD in Taiwan.
Methods: We used the National Health Insurance Research Database to identify patients with PD from 2005 to 2009 and defined cases as those who had ICD-9-CM codes 332.0 or 332.1 among the diagnoses and received prescription of medicine for PD. Arsenic exposure was assessed using the survey of well water in 243 villages conducted by the Taiwanese government. We compare the occurrence of PD between villages within and outside the endemic areas of arsenic exposure to evaluate the association between the arsenic level in drinking water and the PD after adjusting for gender and age.
Results: The prevalence of PD was 226/100,000 and the incidence of PD was 41.8/100,000. Men had higher prevalence than women, and the peak age of late-type PD was 70-80 years old. The relative risk of people living in the endemic areas of arsenic exposure was 1.4 compared to those who did not live in the areas, and the 95% confidence interval was 0.9-2.0, indicating a marginal statistical significance.
Conclusion: People living in the endemic areas of arsenic exposure from drinking water had a higher risk of developing PD, but the increase did not reach statistical significance.
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