Use of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists and Risk of Parkinson's Disease: Scandinavian Cohort Study.
Large Scandinavian cohort study found that new users of GLP-1 receptor agonists had a lower incidence of Parkinson's disease than new users of sulfonylureas (adjusted HR 0.81, consistent across sensitivity analyses).
What the AI sees
Large Scandinavian cohort study found that new users of GLP-1 receptor agonists had a lower incidence of Parkinson's disease than new users of sulfonylureas (adjusted HR 0.81, consistent across sensitivity analyses).
Research significance
Supports the repurposing of GLP-1 receptor agonists as candidate neuroprotective therapies for Parkinson's disease with high translational potential given existing clinical safety data, though causality requires randomized trials and mechanistic studies to confirm.
Source abstract
AIMS: To investigate the association between use of GLP-1 receptor agonists and incident Parkinson's disease. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Cohort study using data from nationwide registers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden and an active-comparator, new-user design. We included 158 961 new users of GLP-1 receptor agonists and 188 065 new users of sulfonylureas, aged 45 years or older. Liraglutide accounted for 72.9% of GLP-1 receptor agonist follow-up time, followed by semaglutide (13.4%), exenatide (7.3%), dulaglutide (5.1%) and lixisenatide (1.3%). The primary outcome was incident Parkinson's disease, defined as a first-ever diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (ICD-10 G20) or Parkinson's disease dementia (ICD-10 F02.3) in national patient registers. Cox regression with propensity score weighting was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and control for confounding. RESULTS: Mean age was 65 years and 43% were female. Incidence rates for Parkinson's disease were 5.2 and 8.0 per 10 000 person-years among GLP-1 receptor agonist and sulfonylurea users, respectively (adjusted HR 0.81 [95% CI 0.68-0.96]). Results were consistent in a 2-year lag-time analysis (HR 0.84 [95% CI 0.70-1.02]) after excluding or censoring users of DPP-4 inhibitors at cohort entry or during follow-up (HR 0.74 [95% CI 0.60-0.93]) and in subgroup analyses by sex and age. CONCLUSION: In this large observational cohort study, use of GLP-1 receptor agonists compared with sulfonylureas was associated with a lower risk of incident Parkinson's disease. These findings support a potential neuroprotective role of GLP-1 receptor agonists, though replication in additional studies is needed.