Occupational and recreational physical activity and Parkinson’s disease in Denmark

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to examine whether occupational and physical activity (PA) at different ages contribute to Parkinson’s disease (PD) risk in a large population-based case-control study in Denmark. METHODS: We identified 1828 PD patients from the Danish National Hospital Register and recruited 1909 gender and year of birth matched controls from the Danish Central Population Register. Occupational and leisure-time PA were determined from a job exposure matrix based on occupational history and self-reported leisure-time information. RESULTS: No association was found for occupational PA alone in men, but higher leisure-time PA (≥5 hours/week of strenuous activities) in young adulthood (15–25 years) was associated with a lower PD risk (adjusted odds ratio (OR_adj) 0.75, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.62–0.90); men who engaged in high occupational and high leisure-time PA in young adulthood had the lowest PD risk (OR_adj 0.58, 95% CI 0.41–0.81). Among women, inverse associations were found for occupation PA before age 50 (highest vs lowest, OR_adj 0.75, 95% CI 0.55–1.06) and strenuous leisure-time PA after age 50 (OR_adj 0.65, 95% CI 0.87–0.99); no clear pattern was seen for leisure and occupational PA combined. CONCLUSIONS: We observed gender-specific inverse associations between occupational and leisure-time PA and PD risk; however, we cannot preclude reverse causation especially in older ages since PD has a long prodromal stage that might lead to a reduction of PA years before motor symptom onset and PD diagnosis.

Keywords

• work
• work
• job exposure matrix
• recreational physical activity
• work
• exercise
• physical activity
• denmark
• occupational physical activity
• leisure-time physical activity
• parkinson’s disease