Parkinson’s disease risk and phenoconversion: a polygenic risk score approach

Project Summary

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease in older adults. Health conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure are called cardiometabolic diseases. Some studies suggest people with these conditions have a higher risk of PD but other studies have not and bias could have played a role. There are many of these genetic factors that play a role in a person’s risk for these diseases. Together, they are called ‘diabetes genetic scores’ or ‘high blood pressure genetic scores.’ The goal of this study is to see if these genetic scores can predict PD to try to reduce some bias that could have resulted in the previous studies finding different results. We will use the genetic scores of the cardiometabolic diseases as a surrogate for having the disease instead of considering the disease itself.