Caffeine level in body indicates possibility of Parkinson’s disease

Washington, January 5: Your morning coffee cup can indicate whether you have Parkinson’s disease or not. This is because of the new study which says that the level of caffeine in the blood could help determine if a person has Parkinson's disease.

People with the degenerative disease have significantly lower levels of caffeine in their blood than people without the disease, even if they consume the same amount of caffeine, according to the study published online in Neurology, the American Academy of Neurology's medical journal.

Currently, there's no good way to diagnose early Parkinson's disease. Many of the physical symptoms can mimic those of other conditions, so it often takes six months or longer to get a diagnosis, explained James Beck, the chief scientific officer at the Parkinson's Foundation.

"Previous studies have shown a link between caffeine and a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease, but we haven't known much about how caffeine metabolizes within the people with the disease," study author Shinji Saiki of Juntendo University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan, said in a statement.

The study was conducted on 108 people and results were obtained.

"If these results can be confirmed, they would point to an easy test for early diagnosis of Parkinson's, possibly even before symptoms are appearing," said David Munoz of the University of Toronto in Canada, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.

"This is important because Parkinson's disease is difficult to diagnose, especially at the early stages."