Objective: The goal of this study was to describe the current food-related behaviors associated with subsequent Parkinson disease (PD) symptom severity.

Background: The Modifiable Variables in Parkinsonism (MVP) Study was initiated over a decade ago to identifying food and food-related behaviors associated with rate of Parkinson disease (PD) progression. This positive deviance study aimed to describe the behaviors associated with best outcomes, in hopes that others can mimic those behaviors and experience improved outcomes.

Method: The Patient Reported Outcomes in Parkinson’s Disease (PRO-PD) scale was used to identify symptom severity at baseline and 1year +1mo later. To identify predictors influencing the PRO-PD scores at baseline, a Gamma regression model was constructed and applied to the one-year follow-up data. The analysis included 2,788 patients with a diagnosis of PD at baseline and 774 patients at the one-year follow-up. A cross-validation approach for joint modeling was employed to assess model reliability. High reliability was defined as greater than 80%, indicating a strong correlation in over 80% of cross-validation samples. Moderate reliability ranged between 50% and 80%, while low reliability was classified as below 50%. Figures were generated to illustrate the influence of baseline dietary patterns on disease progression.

Results: With regards to food behaviors, individuals that had more difficulty affording groceries and healthy food are predicted to have the most severe symptom progression over time. Cooking meals at home, preparing meals for other, eating organic, avoiding diary, knowing the dirty dozen, and preparing meals with spices is protective and are associated with slower symptom progression. When examining dietary choices, individuals who regularly consume milk, juice, bread, fried foods, cheese, butter, and soda tend to experience faster symptom progression. Conversely, those who include beef, nuts and seeds, olive oil, and spices in their diet exhibit the slowest progression of symptoms, suggesting a potential protective effect.

Conclusion: These data demonstrate that current food choices impact PD symptom severity over the subsequent year and suggests that diet has therapeutic potential as a disease-modifying intervention. Whether modification is possible, sustainable, and effective at changing outcomes will be determined in subsequent intervention studies.

Dietary Predictors of Parkinson Progression

Dietary Consumption Frequency and Symptom Severity

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/food-related-predictors-of-parkinson-progression/