Progressive and accelerated weight and body fat loss in Parkinson's disease: A three-year prospective longitudinal study

Although weight loss is common in Parkinson's disease (PD), longitudinal studies assessing weight and body composition changes are limited. In this three-year longitudinal study, 125 subjects (77 PD patients and 48 spousal/sibling controls) underwent clinical, biochemical and body composition assessments using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Patients were older than controls (65.6 ± 8.9 vs. 62.6 ± 7.1, P = 0.049), with no significant differences in gender, comorbidities, dietary intake and physical activity. Clinically significant weight loss (≥5% from baseline weight) was recorded in 41.6% of patients, with a doubling of cases (6.5 to 13.0%) classified as underweight at study end. Over three years, patients demonstrated greater reductions in BMI (mean −1.2 kg/m2, 95%CI-2.0 to −0.4), whole-body fat percentage (−2.5% points, 95%CI-3.9 to −1.0), fat mass index (FMI) (−0.9 kg/m2, 95%CI-1.4 to −0.4), visceral fat mass (−0.1 kg, 95%CI-0.2 to 0.0), and subcutaneous fat mass (−1.9 kg, 95%CI-3.4 to −0.5) than in controls, with significant group-by-time interactions after adjusting for age and gender. Notably, 31.2% and 53.3% of patients had FMI