Research Article

Reproductive factors, exogenous estrogen use, and risk of Parkinson's disease†

  1. Kelly Claire Simon ScD1,*,
  2. Honglei Chen MD, PhD2,
  3. Xiang Gao PhD1,
  4. Michael A. Schwarzschild MD, PhD3,
  5. Alberto Ascherio MD, DrPH1,4,5

Article first published online: 7 MAY 2009

DOI: 10.1002/mds.22619

Issue

Movement Disorders

Movement Disorders

Volume 24, Issue 9, pages 1359–1365, 15 July 2009

Additional Information

How to Cite

Simon, K. C., Chen, H., Gao, X., Schwarzschild, M. A. and Ascherio, A. (2009), Reproductive factors, exogenous estrogen use, and risk of Parkinson's disease. Mov. Disord., 24: 1359–1365. doi: 10.1002/mds.22619

Author Information

  1. 1

    Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

  2. 2

    Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA

  3. 3

    Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

  4. 4

    Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

  5. 5

    Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

*Deptartment of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave, Building 2, 3rd floor, Boston, MA

  1. †

    Potential conflict of interest: None reported.

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 24 JUL 2009
  2. Article first published online: 7 MAY 2009
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 25 MAR 2009
  4. Manuscript Revised: 7 JAN 2009
  5. Manuscript Received: 1 OCT 2008

Funded by

  • NIH/NINDS. Grant Numbers: R01 NS048517, T32 ES07069-26
  • Intramural Research Program
  • National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
  • National Institute of Health. Grant Numbers: Z01ES1019, W81XWH-091-0881

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Keywords:

  • Parkinson's disease;
  • estrogen;
  • epidemiology;
  • reproductive factors

Abstract

To determine if reproductive factors or exogenous estrogen are associated with risk of Parkinson's disease (PD), we conducted a prospective study with 22 years of follow-up among postmenopausal participants in the Nurses' Health Study. Relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of PD were estimated from a Cox proportional hazards model adjusting for potential confounders. Risk of PD was not significantly associated with any of the reproductive factors measured or exogenous estrogen use. Use of postmenopausal hormones, however, may modify the associations of smoking and caffeine intake with PD risk. The inverse relation between smoking and PD risk was attenuated among ever users of postmenopausal hormones (P for interaction = 0.05). Similar results were obtained for caffeine (P for interaction = 0.09). In exploratory analyses, women using progestin-only hormones were found to have an increased PD risk, but this result was based on a very small number of cases (n = 4). In this large longitudinal study, we found no evidence of a beneficial effect of exogenous or endogenous estrogens on risk of PD. The use of postmenopausal hormone use may interact with other risk factors, but findings are preliminary and need confirmation in other populations. © 2009 Movement Disorder Society

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