Statins - increasing or reducing the risk of Parkinson's disease?

Primary or idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common late-onset neurodegenerative disease, characterized by several clinical features, such as resting tremor, rigidity, akinesia, depression and sleep disturbances. These symptoms are in most cases related to protein aggregation leading to a marked depletion of dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra pars compacta of the basal ganglia and by a subsequent malfunction of the nigro-striatal circuitry. Only few risk factors for idiopathic PD have been identified, including both genetic and environmental components. However, some chemical compounds can induce secondary parkinsonism that promote PDlike symptoms, such as antipsychotic drugs, certain calcium channel blockers or anti-epileptic drugs. Despite increasing knowledge on genetic risk factors, the pathophysiology of PD has not been unraveled. Hitherto, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress and inflammation are suspected to initiate PD associated loss of dopaminergic neurons. [...]