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Effects of dietary supplements, foods, and dietary patterns in Parkinson’s disease: meta-analysis and systematic review of randomized and crossover studies

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Background

Diet significantly impacts Parkinson’s disease (PD) with plausible biological hypotheses. Although the thesis has been explored in several human clinical trials, no current meta-analyses or reviews summarize the results. We examined the effect of intervention of dietary supplements, foods, and dietary patterns in treating PD.

Methods

We conducted a meta-analysis and systematic review of randomized and crossover studies published between 1989 and 26 June 2022, searching from PubMed, Embase, Medline, Scopus, Cochrane Library databases, and Chinese databases. Twenty-four studies were included in this review.

Results

The meta-analysis results show that dietary supplements intervention significantly increased the quantitative insulin sensitivity check index (QUICKI) [MD = 0.02, 95% CI (0.01, 0.02), p < 0.00001]. Dietary supplement intervention does not significantly affect the total Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) score and six-min walk test (6MWT) distance. We did not find evidence that dietary supplements or food intervention may minimize the UPDRS III score. However, systematic review results indicated that the Mediterranean, low-fat, and ketogenic diets significantly reduced the total UPDRS score; low-protein diets meaningfully mitigated motor symptoms.

Conclusions

This meta-analysis result displays that diet and diet supplements had a very modest but statistically significant impact on QUICKI but no effect on motor and non-motor symptoms in PD. The systematic review concludes that dietary patterns intervention may positively attenuate the overall symptoms of PD, including both motor and non-motor symptoms.

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Fig. 1: Flow chart showing the search result of the meta-analysis.
Fig. 2: Effect of dietary supplement intervention on the UPDRS in the random-effect meta-analysis.
Fig. 3: Effect of dietary supplement intervention on the UPDRS after removing a document through sensitivity analysis.
Fig. 4: Effect of dietary supplement intervention on the UPDRS III in the fixed-effect meta-analysis.
Fig. 5: Effect of dietary supplement intervention on the 6MWT in the fixed-effect meta-analysis.
Fig. 6: Effect of dietary supplement intervention on the QUICKI in the fixed-effect meta-analysis.
Fig. 7: Effect of food intervention on the UPDRS III in the fixed-effect meta-analysis.
Fig. 8: Intervention effect of RCT study vs. Crossover RCT study for the UPDRS III on patients in subgroup meta-analysis.

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Data availability

All data during the study appear in the submitted article.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 82060596), all support is gratefully acknowledged.

Funding

The National Natural Science Foundation of China provided funding for this work (grant number 82060596).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, 750004, Ningxia, China

    Lingyu Wu, Liwen Chu, Yufei Pang, Jinghong Huo, Hongdou Cao, Qi Tian & Qinghan Gao

  2. Key Laboratory of Environmental Factors and Chronic Disease Control, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, 750004, Ningxia, China

    Lingyu Wu, Liwen Chu, Yufei Pang, Jinghong Huo, Hongdou Cao, Qi Tian & Qinghan Gao

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Contributions

Conceptualization: Lingyu Wu. Data curation: Lingyu Wu and Yufei Pang. Formal analysis: Lingyu Wu and Jinghong Huo. Investigation: Lingyu Wu and Yufei Pang. Methodology: Lingyu Wu. Project administration: Lingyu Wu. Resources: Qinghan Gao. Software: Lingyu Wu, Hongdou Cao, Qi Tian and Liwen Chu. Supervision: Lingyu Wu and Qinghan Gao. Article modification: Lingyu Wu and Liwen Chu.

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Correspondence to Qinghan Gao.

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Wu, L., Chu, L., Pang, Y. et al. Effects of dietary supplements, foods, and dietary patterns in Parkinson’s disease: meta-analysis and systematic review of randomized and crossover studies. Eur J Clin Nutr (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-024-01411-1

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