Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases Predict Different COVID-19 Outcomes: A UK Biobank Study

  1. Yizhou Yu
  2. Marco Travaglio
  3. Rebeka Popovic
  4. Nuno Santos Leal
  5. Luis Miguel Martins

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

In December 2019, a coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began infecting humans, causing a novel disease, coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19). This was first described in the Wuhan province of the People’s Republic of China. SARS-CoV-2 has spread throughout the world, causing a global pandemic. To date, thousands of cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United Kingdom, and over 45,000 patients have died. Some progress has been achieved in managing this disease, but the biological determinants of health, in addition to age, that affect SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and mortality are under scrutiny. Recent studies show that several medical conditions, including diabetes and hypertension, increase the risk of COVID-19 and death. The increased vulnerability of elderly individuals and those with comorbidities, together with the prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases with advanced age, led us to investigate the links between neurodegeneration and COVID-19. We analysed the primary health records of 13,338 UK individuals tested for COVID-19 between March and July 2020. We show that a pre-existing diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease predicts the highest risk of COVID-19 and mortality among elderly individuals. In contrast, Parkinson’s disease patients were found to have a higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection but not mortality from COVID-19. We conclude that there are disease-specific differences in COVID-19 susceptibility among patients affected by neurodegenerative disorders.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.3390/geriatrics6010010
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.05.20226605: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: UK Biobank ethical approval was granted from the North West Multi-Centre Research Ethics Committee.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    This study presents several caveats. First, our cohort is not representative of the UK population. For instance, the majority of COVID-19 related deaths in the UK took place in care homes 49. However, only six patients included in our study were reported to live in long-term care facilities, and none of them tested positive for COVID-19. Therefore, our analysis of patients affected by chronic neurological diseases only included patients living in domestic residences where rapid changes in social behaviour and domestic care may have affected distinct patient groups differently. This feature might have led us to overestimate the effect of chronic neurological illness on the risk of COVID-19 infection and mortality and further investigation is needed to confirm the generalisability of our results. In addition, it is important to recognise the indirect effects of the current pandemic on AD patients. Because elderly individuals are at increased risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19 infection, government guidelines recommend the isolation of these individuals and limited contact with their family members 50. However, social activities as well as time spent with other people is generally considered to help prevent cognitive decline in the elderly 51. Therefore, it is plausible that isolation, albeit necessary, may lead to increased stress and cognitive decline among AD patients 52. In turn, these behavioural difficulties may exacerbate underlying neurological illness contributing to...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.05.20226605v1 on medRxiv