Calcium channel blockers and β-blockers in relation to Parkinson's disease

Received 24 May 2006; received in revised form 18 July 2006; accepted 26 August 2006.

Abstract

We investigated the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) associated with calcium channel blockers (CCBs) and β-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 β-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.

Keywords: Parkinson's disease, Calcium channel blockers, β-blockers, Epidemiology, Case-control

a Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Box 357236, Seattle, WA 98195-7326, USA

b Department of Neurology, University of Washington, Box 359775, Seattle, WA 98195-9775, USA

c Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Box 357234, Seattle, WA 98195-7234, USA

d Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1101 Fairview Ave N., PO Box 19024, Seattle, WA 98109, USA

Corresponding author. Tel.: +12066161109; fax: +12066853990.

PII: S1353-8020(06)00221-5

doi:10.1016/j.parkreldis.2006.08.011

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