Study links ultra-processed foods to early signs of Parkinson’s disease
A new study published in Neurology has found that people who eat large amounts of ultra-processed foods are more likely to show early signs of Parkinson’s disease than those who eat less, reports a Kazinform News Agency correspondent.
These early symptoms, known as prodromal features, can appear years before the disease is officially diagnosed.
Parkinson’s disease is a slow-developing brain disorder. It often begins with nonmotor symptoms like sleep issues, constipation, and depression, long before movement problems begin. Researchers are interested in these early signs because catching them may help delay or slow the disease’s progress.
The new research, led by Xiang Gao from the Institute of Nutrition at Fudan University, focused on whether ultra-processed food might be linked to such early warning signs.
“We previously showed that people with poor diet quality had a high future risk of Parkinson’s disease, suggesting the important role of diet in the development of the condition,” said Gao. “Recently, ultra-processed food, which are strongly associated with poor diet quality, have been shown to be associated with dementia, another major neurodegenerative disease. However the relation between ultra-processed food and Parkinson’s disease remained unknown.”
To investigate, the researchers studied health and diet data from 42,853 adults in the U.S., collected over several decades. They used detailed food questionnaires and tracked how often participants consumed ultra-processed items such as sugary snacks, soft drinks, and processed meats.
The results showed that people who consumed the most ultra-processed foods were about 2.5 times more likely to have three or more early signs of Parkinson’s. These included sleep behavior disorder, constipation, body pain, and depression. The link stayed strong even after researchers adjusted for other lifestyle factors like exercise, smoking, and total calorie intake.
To ensure that symptoms didn’t influence eating habits, the team used diet data from at least six years before symptom assessments. They also found consistent results using older diet records from the 1980s.
“Healthy dietary patterns, high in fruits and vegetables and low in ultra-processed foods, could be beneficial against risk of Parkinson’s disease, an incurable neurodegenerative disease,” said Gao.
Still, researchers caution that this study doesn’t prove cause and effect. Diet and symptoms were self-reported, and other factors like genetics or environment could play a role. But the study adds to growing evidence that eating fewer processed foods may help protect long-term brain health.
Earlier, it was reported that a team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem had developed a new non-invasive blood test capable of detecting Parkinson’s disease before the onset of its typical symptoms.
