Can You Get Parkinson’s in Your 50s?

parkinson in your 50s

Last Updated on 6 November 2024

Getting Parkinson’s in your 50s has never been a common eventuality, but, nowadays, things seem to have changed dramatically.

The most recent statistics, indeed, reported the number of new Parkinson diagnoses in people with more or less than 50s. Only in the US, every year, there are 90,000 new cases.  

According to the current data, 50-year patients with Parkinson’s represent 5% of the total cases.

This article explored the multifaceted features of Parkinson in mid-aged patients, and its impact on a fairly young category of population.

Parkinson in midlife. Overview

Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease affecting the brain circuits that control movements. It is, if fact, considered as one of the most disabling and debilitating modern diseases.

When Parkinson’s starts at the 50s, the impact is even more devastating, because it regards subjects who are still active at home and at work, with a burden of daily tasks which require a high capacity of movement.

parkinson pain

The onset mechanism of Parkinson’s is the same in all ages, anyway: the neurons that produce dopamine die or stop working. Since dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in the control of movements, dopaminergic loss often results in the classic symptoms of Parkinson’s, such as tremors, stiffness, bradykinesia and postural instability.

In the 50s, however, the disease can also have an emotional impact, because dopamine also regulates stress, emotions and sensation of fatigue.

In young people, the symptoms can be extremely individualized and linked to different life circumstances, and different causes.

However, early Parkinson’s does not cause cognitive decline, and that is an advantage when you are in your 50s and in the full of your life.

Causes of Parkinson’s in the 50s

When neurologists diagnose Parkinson in middle aged subjects, they label the disease as genetic. It happened to me last year, when I was diagnosed with Parkinson. The diagnosis, unfortunately, arrived in my 50s. Another cause of Parkinson’s in the 50s is familiarity. This means that if a relative of yours had Parkinson’s it is likely you’ll have, too.

I had two cases in my family: my mother, who got an odd form of young Parkinson in her 16 years, in 1962, (afterward completely recovered), and my maternal uncle, who died from atypical and drug-resistant Parkinson in 2018, when he was over 70.

As you can see, my family Parkinson cases were diametrically opposed: my mum healed, my uncle died. That is a mystery I am still investigating along with the doctors, but the causes of Parkinson’s in the 50s are multifactorial and often the disease is only the tip of the iceberg of a complex condition underlying other disorders.

Indeed, once, a professor at the University of Catania, said to me that for a disease to develop, many circumstances are necessary. Only a genetic factor is not enough. Genetic vulnerability must meet other detrimental conditions to produce a disease.

Moreover, the conditions that make people prone to have Parkinson in their 50s can be different in males and females. Genetically susceptible males can get Parkinson because they came across neurotoxins, in their work environment, for instance, while females with Parkinson gene, can get the disease in their 50s due to hormonal dysregulation caused by menopause.

Another cause of Parkinson is a preexisting autoimmunity. Several studies reported that patients with autoimmune disorders have a higher risk of getting Parkinson. Even in this case, unfortunately, the link between autoimmunity and Parkinson’s in the 50s has not been explored by modern medical research, yet.  

Another cause of Parkinson is bipolar disorder. It seems that people with this mental illness have a high risk of developing Parkinson in their 50s.

Bipolar disorder, in fact, is a mental illness that starts around 18 and 20s, when the brain is still developing, and is more vulnerable to mood swings.  It is likely, according to the studies, that a dopamine dysfunction may underlie both the development of bipolar, at young age, and Parkinson in midlife.

The common hypothesis is that a neurotransmitter dysregulation may have an impact on the brain circuits that regulate both mood and movements.

That has been the explanation I received from Neurologist and Researcher at Catania University Dr. Salvatore Lo Fermo, during the first examination of my movement disorders.

He said to me: “It is more likely that you had a neurotransmitter dysfunction that caused you to have bipolar disorder, first, and Parkinson, after. It was your clinical history, Mrs. Mancuso. But today, we have the tools to help patients like you feel better.”

Yes, I had bipolar disorder, and even autoimmune thyroiditis. The latter can alter the signal of neurotransmitters in the brain, and make the work of neurons harder.

We must also say that Pd in the 50s may have differences between men and women. Men may frequently experience balance disorders, while women experience fatigue, anxiety and depression.

Both of them, however, can share common traits that facilitate the onset of the disease.

Patient profiles with Parkinson in their 50s

The most recent diagnoses of middle-aged patients relate to subjects who have had symptoms after the pandemic. According to several studies, Covid-19 accelerated biological aging, because the protein of the virus modified the chromosome telomeres involved in the so-called epigenetic clocks.

This condition has also anticipated the onset of aging disorders, such as cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Hence, 50-year-old subjects who got Parkinson after Covid-19 would be biologically 60 years old, and over, in reality.

Parkinson’s which affects aged patients is defined as idiopathic, and mainly caused by oxidative stress, and neuroinflammation.

Oxidative stress, in turn, is a process in which particular molecules called free radicals hit cells, damaging their DNA. Free radicals are often generated by exposure to environmental pollutants, such as pesticides and cigarette smoke.

neurons

DNA damage is always a condition that can determine cancer, or neuronal death.  Free radicals develop in the body even during aging, because, when one gets old, cells lose most of the substances (proteins, hormones, neurotransmitters) that defend them from external pathogens or toxins, guaranteeing cell homeostasis. The latter is a condition of perfect metabolic and energetic balance, where no oxidative stress or inflammation occurs.

It may also be possible that behavioral traits are involved in the early onset of Parkinson. This is the shocking hypothesis made by the Neuroscience team at the University of Catania. During the clinical trial that enrolled 100 PD patients (57 men; mean age 59.0±10.2 years) and 100 healthy subjects (52 men; mean age 58.1±11.4 years), PD patients presented a high frequency of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder that does not seem to be related with disease duration or dopaminergic therapy.

As a matter of fact, that is not a novel finding, because since 1913, several reports have evaluated the association between personality traits and Parkinson’s disease (PD), generally suggesting a personality profile characterized by industriousness, inflexibility, punctuality, cautiousness and lack of novelty seeking.

Temperament traits (novelty seeking, harm avoidance and reward dependence) are, in fact, related to brain systems modulated by dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenaline.

In the clinical trial report, the researchers have also affirmed that a reduced novelty seeking and increased harm avoidance among PD patients have been consistently reported, and some studies have shown that the degree of reduced novelty seeking in PD patients was correlated with specific patterns of impaired dopamine functioning. On the basis of this evidence a “premorbid” parkinsonian personality has been suggested and it has been hypothesized that it could be a possible early manifestation of the neurological changes in the brain. However, despite several case-report, case series, twin studies, and case-control studies supporting this hypothesis, to date the idea of such a distinctive premorbid personality profile remains controversial.

According to this study, Parkinson’s in the 50s could be a sort of psychosomatic disease. A type of psychosomatic Parkinson’s exists, in reality, but it is a different condition which shares the same symptoms of the typical PD, but without evidence of neuronal loss during the brain scan. Middle-aged PD patients, instead, have loss or imbalance of neurons that is shown in the brain scan. They have the true Parkinson, in short.

The physical disease could thus be the sad consequence of a psychological or emotional imbalance that has stressed the brain over time, preventing it from working properly. This hypothesis is confirmed by another study on the link between idiopathic Parkinson and depression.

Irritability and high mood, for example, are linked to high dopaminergic peaks, while low mood and depression are linked to low dopaminergic peaks.  These constant and perpetual dopamine ups and downs can have an impact on the survival rate of neurons.

In a similar condition, Parkinson becomes a kind of defense mechanism, because movement disorders, which are the expression of a lack or downregulation of dopamine, often stop emotional symptoms. This is what I think about my Parkinson (when I have movement disorders, I have less emotional symptoms).

On the basis of this still partial evidence, hence, subjects in their 50s with Parkinson could have these common traits: mental disturbances. such as bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, OCD, perfectionism, and autoimmune disease, especially autoimmune thyroiditis.

Thyroid autoimmunity, along with goiter, hypo and hyperthyroidism, can be triggers of mental diseases, neuroinflammation and Parkinson, because the pathway of thyroid hormone release starts in the brain. Thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH), indeed, regulates non only thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and thyroid hormones, but also stimulates the release of dopamine.

Thyroid disturbances can be extremely critical, because the severity of Parkinson depends on the severity of the thyroid impairment.

Anyway, the treatment of thyroid diseases can be extremely beneficial to successfully cure Parkinson in your 50s.

Parkinson in the 50s. Treatment

When you get Parkinson’s in your 50s, the gold standard treatment is always with levodopa/carbidopa, namely with the medication which replaces the missing dopamine in the brain.

But, often, due to the underlying conditions that have worked as triggers for early Parkinson disease, only the dopamine replacement may not be enough.

It happened to me, because I had autoimmune thyroiditis and mood disorders. Only the treatment for Parkinson exacerbated my mood disorders, and my thyroiditis symptoms. And so, doctors prescribed me with a different formulation of levodopa/carbidopa, and replaced the one with immediate release with modified release pills.

Mood disorders reduced, but I still had my thyroiditis symptoms. The psychiatrist tried to prescribe me with Lamictal, a mood stabilizer based on lamotrigine, but even this treatment did not work.

Only a few days ago, I was seen by Dr. Sandro La Vignera, endocrinologist and professor at Catania University, who started administering me a treatment for my autoimmune thyroiditis. Thanks to that, my thyroid symptoms, above all the feeling of extreme fatigue, improved.

For the persistent condition of mood disorder, doctors also advised me on cognitive behavioral psychotherapy (CBP).

Psychotherapy, especially the cognitive behavioral type, indeed, has not only the power to improve the mood, but also has the power to change the brain structure, with a beneficial impact on the symptoms of Parkinson’s, which, usually, tend to worsen when one experiences depression or anxiety.   

Conclusion

In short, when one gets Parkinson in the 50s, this experience is not always a catastrophe. It is a daily challenge, of course, because patients can have symptoms and motor and not motor fluctuations, but to mitigate the disease, and slow its progression, it is necessary to treat the preexisting conditions that caused the start of your early Parkinson’s.

Pre-existing diseases, in fact, interact and exacerbate Parkinson symptoms. Hence, start your battle today, treating your preexisting conditions one by one as I am doing, and you’ll manage to stay active and put Parkinson aside from your life, even in your 50s.

Rosalba Mancuso is a medical journalist, an international writer credited at the University of Washington and a blogger born in Sicily. She is internationally appreciated for founding three online magazines in English. On Modernhealthinfo.com, Rosalba writes well researched and detailed health content backed by her experience as a medical content writer for pharma companies and as a PR assistant for a clinical analysis laboratory. She is also a member of the AHCJ, American Association of Health Care Journalists and Center for Excellence in Health Journalism. This magazine survives thanks to your help. Feel free to send a spontaneous donation to support the efforts that Rosalba makes to produce her articles.