29 Apr Vagotomy May Point To Gut Origin of Parkinson’s Disease

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Wirdefeldt

Karin Wirdefeldt, MD, PhD
Associate professor
Karolinska Institutet
Stockholm, Sweden

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: It has been hypothesized that Parkinson’s disease may start in the gut and spread to the brain via the vagal nerve. We found that people who had a truncal vagotomy (ie, the nerve trunk fully resected) at least 5 years earlier were less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease compared to people without vagotomy or people who had a selective vagotomy (ie, only branches of the nerve resected).

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Our results provide suggestive evidence for a link between the gut and the brain in Parkinson’s disease.

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Response: A lot more research is needed to understand this better, for example experimental studies and pathological studies.

Disclosures as in the article.

MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.

Citation:

Bojing Liu, Fang Fang, Nancy L. Pedersen, Annika Tillander, Jonas F. Ludvigsson, Anders Ekbom, Per Svenningsson, Honglei Chen, and Karin Wirdefeldt. Vagotomy and Parkinson disease: A Swedish register–based matched-cohort study. Neurology, April 2017 DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000003961

Note: Content is Not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care provider regarding your specific medical condition and questions.

More Medical Research Interviews on MedicalResearch.com

[wysija_form id=”5″]

Last Updated on April 29, 2017 by Marie Benz MD FAAD