PL-LBA-2202

J.L. Hale¹, G. Knell², M. Swartz³, E. Shiroma⁴, T. Ellis⁵, I-M. Lee^6,7, K. Gabriel⁸

¹University of Utah, Department of Physical Therapy & Athletic Training, Salt Lake City, United States, ²The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, Dallas, United States, ³The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Department of Biostatistics and Data Science, Houston, United States, ⁴National Institute of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, United States, ⁵Boston University, Department of Physical Therapy and Athletic Training, Boston, United States, ⁶Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology, Boston, United States, ⁷Harvard Medical School, Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, United States, ⁸University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Epidemiology, Birmingham, United States

Background: There is strong evidence that regular physical activity can reduce the risk of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) in men, but these findings are unclear in women. Additionally, little is known about the association of physical activity across the intensity spectrum, including sedentary time and light intensity physical activity (LPA), on risk of PD in older women.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the prospective associations of device-measured physical activity and sedentary behavior with risk of PD in a large cohort of older women.

Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of17,466 ambulatory women enrolled in the Women’s Health Study (WHS) with a median (IQR) age of 70 (67-75) years who were asked to wear an accelerometer for 7 days from 2011-2015 for the ancillary study. Incident PD status was assessed via annual mail-in questionnaires over a median follow up period of 7.3 years. To examine the prospective associations of physical activity and sedentary behavior with risk of PD, Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the hazard rates (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Additionally, isotemporal substitution models were used to examine the hypothetical effect of replacing sedentary time with equal amounts of time in other physical activity intensity categories, including LPA and moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA).

Results: Every increase in total volume of physical activity by 10,000 VM counts per day was associated with a 2.5% (HR: 0.975, 95% CI: 0.96, 0.98) lower risk of PD. When grouping in tertiles of total volume physical activity, including low-volume, moderate-volume, and high-volume physical activity, the moderate and high-volume physical activity groups had a 46% (HR: 0.57, 95% CI: 0.36, 0.80) and 63% (HR: 0.37, 95% CI: 0.24, 0.59) lower risk of PD, respectively, compared to the low-volume group. When examining a hypothetical time-replacement scenario using isotemporal substitution models, it was found that replacing 15 minutes of SED with equal amounts of MPVA was associated with a 23% (HR: 0.77, 95% CI: 0.71, 0.84) lower risk of PD.

Conclusions: The findings from this study are consistent with other prospective epidemiological studies demonstrating that physical activity is associated with a decreased risk of PD in men. Similarly, physical activity is associated with a progressively lower risk of PD in women.

Implications: Collectively, these findings suggest that behavioral strategies to increase physical activity and decrease sedentary time in women should be considered to promote brain health and healthy aging in women.

Funding acknowledgements: The first author received funding from the Parkinson’s Foundation (PF-PFTA-924825) to support this work

Keywords:
Parkinson's Disease
Physical Activity
Epidemiology

Topics:
Neurology: Parkinson's disease
Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: The University of Texas Health Science Center Houston

Committee: Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Ethics number: HSC-SPH-21-0453).