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BackgroundApolipoprotein (APOE) e4 allele status has been linked to clinical presentation and progression in Alzheimer's disease; however, evidence for a role of APOE e4 in Parkinson's disease (PD) remains largely inconclusive. In this analysis we explored potential significant associations between APOE e4 allele status and characteristics of clinical presentation in patients with PD.MethodsData came from 424 subjects evaluated using the Uniform Data Set (UDS) assessment collected by the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center. Subjects had a known year of diagnosis of PD and experienced change in motor function prior to any change in cognition. Linear and logistic regression were used to model the association between APOE e4 carrier status and clinical characteristics including measures of cognitive decline and motor and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Amyloid burden was also evaluated for a subset of patients who died and consented to autopsy.ResultsOdds of dementia were higher in APOE e4 carriers (OR = 5.15), and, on average, APOE e4 carriers scored two points worse on tests of episodic memory and the Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes assessment. There was little evidence to support an association between e4 carrier status and severity of motor features, and, of the four neuropsychiatric symptoms evaluated, only presence of hallucinations was significantly associated with APOE e4 carrier status (OR = 5.29). Neuropathology data revealed higher frequencies of neuritic and diffuse amyloid plaques in APOE e4 carriers compared to non-carriers.ConclusionsAPOE e4 allele status is associated with dementia and severity of Alzheimer's disease pathologic features in PD.

We investigated the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) associated with calcium channel blockers (CCBs) and beta-blockers in a population-based case-control study of 206 men and women between ages 35 and 89 with a new diagnosis of idiopathic PD between 1992 and 2002, and 383 controls without PD or other neurodegenerative disorders who were frequency matched on age, sex, duration of GHC enrollment and clinic. The adjusted odds ratio associated with ever use was 0.85 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.43, 1.66) for CCBs, and 1.20 (95% CI: 0.71, 2.03) for beta-blockers. We observed no association with PD risk for either class of medication in terms of duration, dose, number of prescriptions or pattern of use. The weakness of these associations and the absence of additional influence of dose or duration of use argue against any causal interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]