Abstract
There is no consensus on the involvement of zinc (Zn) dysfunctions in Parkinson’s Disease (PD). We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate whether circulating Zn levels in the serum, plasma, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are altered in PD. Twenty-three published studies were selected by searching the databases of PubMed and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). A total of 803 PD patients and 796 controls, 342 PD patients and 392 controls, and 135 PD patients and 93 controls were included to study Zn levels in the serum, plasma, and CSF, respectively. Our meta-analysis showed that the serum Zn levels were significantly lower in PD patients compared with health controls (SMD = −0.59; 95% CI [−1.06, −0.12]; P = 0.014). A reduced Zn levels in PD patients were found when serum and plasma studies were analyzed together (SMD = −0.60, 95% CI [−0.98; −0.22]; p = 0.002). PD patients had a tendency toward reduced CSF Zn levels compared with health controls (SMD = −0.50; 95% CI [−1.76, 0.76]; P = 0.439), but no statistical significance was obtained and this data did not allow conclusions due to a small sample size of CSF studies. This study suggests that reduced Zn levels in the serum and plasma are associated with an increased risk for PD.
Highlights
Parkinson disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, and the incidence of the disease rises steeply with age
Eligible studies were selected according to the following inclusion criteria: (1) human study, (2) case-control study, and (3) sample size and Zn levels in serum, plasma or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) were provided for both Parkinson’s Disease (PD) subjects and health controls
The Zn levels were significantly decreased in PD patients compared with health controls (SMD = −0.60, 95% CI [−0.98; −0.22]; p = 0.002; Fig. 4) with high heterogeneity (I2 = 94.3%, P = 0.000)
Summary
Parkinson disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, and the incidence of the disease rises steeply with age. The etiology of PD is largely unknown, PD is associated with many etiological factors including ageing, genetic susceptibility, and disturbances in trace element homeostasis[6,7,8,9]. Disturbance of Zn homeostasis has been found to be associated with the pathogenesis of many neurodegenerative disorders in CNS, such as PD, Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis[13,14,15,16,17,18]. We applied this statistical method combining the results of different studies on the levels of zinc in PD, which strengthens the power of the conclusions
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