Vitamin link to Parkinson's

LACK of vitamin D is significantly associated with Parkinson's disease, a study has shown.

Scientists found that lower blood levels of the vitamin were more common in people with Parkinson's than healthy individuals. But whether vitamin D deficiency was a cause of Parkinson's or resulted from it still had to be determined.

The part of the brain most affected by the disease is highly sensitive to vitamin D, suggesting that the vitamin may be important to this region.

But the link between Parkinson's and vitamin D, published in the journal Archives of Neurology, could arise because of the poor mobility of elderly patients. Most vitamin D is manufactured in the skin in response to sunlight.