Epilepsy and hearing loss are ‘novel risk factors’ for Parkinson’s

EPILEPSY and hearing loss are early warning signs of Parkinson’s disease, a study has found.

Around 145,000 people in the UK are living with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative brain condition that causes tremors and stiffness and for which there is no cure.

To understand which conditions might be early symptoms of the disease, scientists studied the health records of more than one million people living in east London since 1980, of whom more than 1,000 developed Parkinson’s.

As well as the well-known risk factors (memory issues, tremors, high blood pressure, diabetes and depression), the study found hearing loss was associated with a 66 per cent greater chance of Parkinson’s, while epilepsy increased a person’s risk by 2.5 times.

Dr Cristina Simonet, lead study author, neurologist and PHD student at Queen Mary University of London, said: “Whilst previous research has hinted at the association, such as epilepsy being more prevalent in Parkinson’s [patients], more research is needed for us to fully understand the relationship.

“In the meantime, it’s important that primary care practitioners are aware of the links so that patients can get a timely diagnosis.” Dr Beckie Port, of Parkinson’s UK, said the reasearch opened the door to treatments that could “stop the condition in its tracks”.

She said the study showed early symptoms were not the same for everyone and had highlighted two that have received little attention.

In the study, around 2.5 per cent of people who developed Parkinson’s had hearing loss in the decade before diagnosis, compared to around 1.5 per cent for those that did not have the disease.

For epilepsy, the study data showed that 27 people (2.6 per cent) had the condition, which causes seizures, compared to 111 (1.1 per cent) for people without Parkinson’s. The study was published in the journal