Men with high levels of the antioxidant urate in their blood seem to develop the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease at a slower rate than those with lower levels of urate.

Urate, the salt form of uric acid, is a prominent component of blood, urine and spinal fluid. Urate is a powerful antioxidant that may protect cells from damage and its antioxidant potency rivals that of vitamin C. High levels of urate have been found in the past to lead to kidney stones and gout.

Researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease and Harvard School of Public Health conducted a two-year study including 800 men who were recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

The researchers discovered that men with the highest urate levels at the study’s start had almost half the risk of needing to start Parkinson’s treatment drugs, as did those with the lowest levels. Moreover, brain scans showed evidence that those with higher urate levels also lost the fewest dopamine-producing neurons, the type of brain cells affected by Parkinson’s. It is known that Parkinson’s occurs when brain cells that produce dopamine are slowly destroyed.

"We found that higher level of urate among people with early Parkinson's disease is associated with a slower rate of Parkinson's progression. These findings, combined with prior knowledge of urate's protective properties in laboratory studies, raise the possibility that urate-elevating strategies could be used to slow the neurodegeneration of Parkinson's disease,” Dr. Michael Schwarzschild of Massachusetts General Hospital, who helped lead the study, said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

Following the levels of urate could be a way to therapeutically modify the course of the disease, although urate itself may not inform treatment decision or risk prediction.

“Measurement of urate on its own in patients with newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease as an indicator of an individual patient's future rate of progression is likely to be of modest clinical utility,” the researchers wrote.

The findings of the study appeared in the April 14 online edition of the Archives of Neurology.