One Trick Lowers Parkinson’s Death Risk by 51%

Previous studies have concluded that doing this one thing helps Parkinson’s disease patients with cognitive, motor, sleep, and mood symptoms.

A large new study published in JAMA Neurology now adds to this literature by showing that it also helps Parkinson’s sufferers live longer.

And this isn’t a small difference—doing this one thing can lower your risk of dying by a mind-blowing 51%.

Just don’t do too much of this, because your risk could go up again.

A team of researchers used data from the Korean National Health Insurance System to identify 10,699 people newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s between January 2010 and December 2013.

This data gave them access to all of the patients’ follow-up information, including medical checkups, deterioration in symptoms, and death.

Subjects were included only if medical checkup information was available for them from two years before the diagnosis until two years after. Those younger than 40 were also excluded.

The researchers had each participant complete a physical activity questionnaire and categorized them accordingly into groups that were either inactive or engaged in mild, moderate, or vigorous exercise.

The researchers then observed these participants until the end of 2017. They were specifically interested in the mortality rates in each of these four groups.

Their definition of vigorous exercise included fast cycling or running for at least 20 minutes; moderate exercise could be fast walking or doubles tennis for at least 30 minutes; and light exercise was walking for leisure or errands.

They found that exercise did indeed extend the lives of Parkinson’s patients.

1. Overall, compared to inactive people, those who engaged in vigorous exercise reduced their risk of death by 20%, while those who engaged in moderate exercise reduced their risk by 34%, and those doing light exercise reduced their mortality risk by 19%.

2. Those who were active only after their diagnoses saw the smallest reduction in death risk: 18% for the vigorously active, 31% for the moderately active, and 14% for the lightly active, as compared to those who remained inactive after their diagnoses.

3. Those who exercised before and after their diagnoses saw the largest reduction in their death risk: 34% for the vigorously active, 51% for the moderately active, and 24% for the lightly active.

Interestingly, you see that those who exercised moderately had a lower death risk than those who engaged in vigorous exercise.

This study is incredibly important, because it appeared in the same month that an alarming study in the journal Neurology reported that the death rate for Parkinson’s disease in the United States was rising.

In fact, the authors of this second study discovered that Parkinson’s deaths had risen by 63% over the last 20 years, with an average annual increase of 2.4%.

But you probably don’t just want to live longer. You also want to live better. And you want to stop your Parkinson’s progression, or even reverse it. To do that, you need to follow the simple lifestyle changes explained here…