Doctors have called high blood pressure "the silent killer" for years because the symptoms are difficult to detect, especially for those who neglect to see a physician regularly. However, Parkinson's patients tend to see their health care providers on a regular basis for help in monitoring their chronic condition. Regular health care can eliminate "the silent killer" with certain high blood pressure medication. For people not yet living with Parkinson's disease, it may even reduce the risk of contracting it!
How can this be?
Every person has dopamine cells. In people afflicted with Parkinson’s disease those dopamine cells die rather quickly in the brain causing their symptoms. Doctors have found that calcium channel blockers, drugs used to treat high blood pressure, rejuvenate aging dopamine cells.
These calcium channel blocker medicines are found in prescription high blood pressure pills and are even available in generic form.
Study author Christoph R. Meier, Ph.D., MSc, with University Hospital Basel in Switzerland, found that people, who were long-term users of calcium channel blockers, lowered their risk of Parkinson’s disease by 23 percent compared with people who didn’t take the drugs or other types of blood pressure medications.
Meier says more research is needed to determine why calcium channel blockers appear to protect against Parkinson’s disease, whether this is indeed a causal association, and why the other high blood pressure medications do not offer a reduced risk.
Should I change my High Blood Pressure Medication?
This is certainly a question to ask both your neurologist and regular physician. Until more scientific data can be evaluated, do not change medication without your doctor’s consent.
Calcium channel blockers may be better at preventing Parkinson's disease than correcting it. More research will help us know with more certainty.
Source:
Neurology, February 2008