Trace Blood Elements and Severity of Parkinson Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the nervous system and it seems that disturbances in trace elements homeostasis mediate progression of disease. The aim of this study was to compare the levels of trace elements (Fe, Cu and Zn) in various PD stages and assess their correlation with the severity of PD.

Serum concentrations of trace elements were measured on Hitachi 902 biochemistry analysis in 109 PD patients and then evaluated severity of disease according to Hoehn & Yahr (HY) in four stages of 1–1.5, 2–2.5, 3, and 4-5 and also motor part of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale III (UPDRS III).

All trace elements levels were within normal reference values and did not differ significantly between different HY stages(Fe: P value =0.670, Cu: P =0.540, Zn: P =0.340) only patients with higher HY stage were older (P = 0.026). When the severity of PD was evaluated by UPDRS III, only there were significant associations between age and UPDRS (III) scales (P = 0.024).

In this study, we confirmed only age as a factor that was correlated with severity of PD. For clarifying actual role of trace elements in PD, more precise examination should be designed.