Common heart medications may also protect against Parkinson’s disease, study finds

UCLA researchers have discovered that a specific type of medication used to treat cardiovascular conditions such as hypertension, angina and abnormal heart rhythms may also decrease the risk of developing Parkinson's disease. In the first large-scale population-based study of its kind, Dr. Beate Ritz, professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health, in collaboration with researchers from the Danish Cancer Society, found that a specific sub-class of dihydropyridine cardiovascular medications was associated with a 26 to 30 percent decrease in the risk of Parkinson's. The findings appear in an upcoming print edition of the journal Annals of Neurology and are currently available online. Parkinson's disease, the second most common neurodegenerative disorder in the United States, is characterized by a loss of voluntary movement, the result of the death of neurons in an area of the brain known as the substantia nigra, which is involved in movement control. Neurons of the substantia nigra that are important in Parkinson's are known to have calcium channels in their cell membranes. These calcium channels are structures that allow the cells to transmit electrical charges to each other. Muscles like the heart also contain calcium channels, and the opening of the calcium channel in the heart causes a muscle contraction.