Parkinson’s study
focuses on fruit

Honolulu researchers look
at a possible increased risk
from consumption of fruit

---

By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

Honolulu researchers are investigating a possible connection between high fruit consumption and increased risk of Parkinson's disease.

But they stress that people should not stop eating fruit, because it can protect against more common chronic diseases.

"Fruit is a very important part of a healthful diet," said Andrew Grandinetti, University of Hawaii Pacific Biomedical Center epidemiologist, who has led the study.

"If you have Parkinson's, it's a very important disease, but in terms of public health impact, compared to diabetes, heart and cancer, it's not something we'd recommend altering behavior for, especially when we're not sure of the relationship between fruit and Parkinson's."

Grandinetti was among 7,200 scientists reporting new findings on a broad array of neurological conditions at the American Academy of Neurology meetings that ended last week at the Hawai'i Convention Center.

Parkinson's disease is an abnormal condition of the nervous system that usually occurs in older people, resulting in tremors, rigidity of the muscles and slow body movement.

Grandinetti, in an interview, said his research on the disease began in the early 1990s with his master's degree dissertation at UH and continued as part of the Honolulu Heart Study.

The heart study began in 1965 with 8,006 Japanese-American men on Oahu chosen from the World War II Selective Service registration file. About 2,000 are still living, ranging from 83 to 103 years old, Grandinetti said.

In 38 years of the study, Grandinetti said, 140 cases of Parkinson's disease were recorded.

The research was based on food questionnaires given to the men during exams, as well as interviews about their diets, he said.

Questionnaires in 1990 showed 1,449 ate fruit or consumed fruit juice or drinks, such as Hawaiian Punch, at least once a day.

Adjusting for other known risk factors, the study showed those men were almost twice as likely to develop Parkinson's disease than those with lower fruit consumption, Grandinetti said.

The same relationships were found in a follow-up study 10 years later, he said, adding, "One possibility is it might just be a marker of different health-related behaviors."

The increased risk may not be due to the fruit itself, but to food-borne toxins, pesticides or herbicides, he said.

The study provides a unique opportunity to look at possible environmental or behavior risk factors preceding Parkinson's disease late in life, he said.

In his initial research, he found a hint that vitamin E might have a protective effect against Parkinson's, he said.

Some studies indicated vitamin C was associated with increased risk for the disease, but his research did not support that, he said.

"There is a lot of attention on vitamin C and fruit intake," he said, "and to see if it (increased risk) might be explained by behavioral differences, smoking or if they worked on a plantation in the past."

One of the most consistent findings in any study is that smokers have a lower risk of Parkinson's, which may indicate some changes in the brain that "might be related to pleasure-seeking behavior of addictive people," he said.

In further research, Grandinetti plans to go back to the subjects' dietary records "to see if we can tally up specific fruit" that may be involved.

---

UH John A. Burns School of Medicine
American Academy of Neurology