Retrospective Analysis of Diabetes Comorbidity in Populations with Movement Disorders Related to Parkinson's Disease

Background and aim of the work: Some studies during the time have shown a high comorbidity of diabetes in parkinson's disease and related disorders. This imprerssion was also detected in our clinical experience. Therefore it was decided to carry out a study about the incidence of diabetes in affected populations using the raw data collected in clinical practice. The purpose of the analysis was to establish a possible action of diabetes as a risk factor for extrapyramidal diseases. Methods: We studied a group of 88 subjects with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) of which 18 with diabetes (20.45%, about 1 in 4), a group with Essential Tremor (ET) consisting of 68 subjects of which 17 affected by diabetes (25%) and a group with Vascular Parkinsonism (VP) consisting of 21 subjects of which 5 with diabetes (23.8%). Results: The ratios showed a relatively homogeneous distribution in the three sub-populations of the given diabetic disease. The results indicated that the statistic comparison between the various groups examined did not give any statistical significance. Similarly, the comparison between the individual groups with the pathologies examined (PD, VP and ET) and the recruited control population was not significant as regards the incidence of diabetes as comorbidity. Conclusion: The scarce relevance in the differences between patients with diabetes and without does not exclude tout court a possible influence of the dysmetabolic disorder on extrapyramidal diseases as it is necessary to take into account biochemical factors that are difficult to measure with clinical studies.