Sex differences in Parkinson's disease

by Kirrilly Burton Parkinson's disease symptoms appear later and progress at a slower rate in women compared to men, a new study shows. Dutch researchers assessed 253 men and women who had had Parkinson's disease for a maximum of 10 years. On average women presented with the disease 2.1 years later than men - at 53.4 years, compared to 51.3 (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2007;78:819-24). Onset in women was delayed by the number of children they'd had (an average of 2.7 years delayed onset per child), by a later menopause and a longer fertile life span, the researchers said. More women initially presented with tremors (67% compared to 48% of men). Those of either gender who presented with tremor symptoms were 3.6 years older at disease onset, had 38% slower motor deterioration, and less serotonin degeneration than other patients. "Women tended to be older at symptom onset... [and] presented more often than men with a tremor dominant form of PD, which in turn was associated with a slower disease progression," the authors said. They believed these benefits were related to oestrogen status. "Oestrogens may exert some form of neuroprotection in the preclinical stage of Parkinson's disease, or may even postpone the beginning of the degenerative process," they said. But women seemed to have no further advantage over men once the disease was clinically manifest....