Melanoma in the Family May be Linked to Increased Risk of Parkinson’s Disease

A family history of melanoma may be an indication that you are also more than twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease later in life, according to new medical research.

Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston are the first to identify common genetic mechanisms which exist between the common form of skin cancer and the degenerative neurological disease, which causes muscle rigidity and tremors and may interfere with speech and motor skills.

In the study, set to be formally presented in May 2009 at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, researchers analyzed data compiled by two ongoing studies, an all-male study called the Health Professional Follow-Up Study and the all-female Nurses Health Study.

Nearly 132,000 people are participating in the two studies. All were free from Parkinson’s disease at the onset of the studies, but over the next 14 to 20 years, there were more than 543 cases of the disease reported in the study groups.

Researchers found that participants who reported a family history of melanoma were more than twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease compared to others with no melanoma in their family histories. The study concluded that melanoma and Parkinson’s disease share common genetic components, possibly involving the metabolism of pigments and genes which encode proteins, linking them together.

The same team of researchers previously found a link between people with red hair or a varying pigmentation gene called MC1R and Parkinson’s disease. The same people are also more likely to develop melanoma, but earlier research found that people with those physical and genetic traits are two to three times more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.

The study’s findings linking a family history of melanoma and an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease must be confirmed with further researcher, officials said, but the results could lead to a key in helping physicians diagnose the condition or red flag certain people as being at higher risk of developing Parkinson’s.

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