High age-adjusted prevalence of Parkinson’s disease among Inuit in Greenland

Abstract

Little is known about neurological diseases among the Inuit in Greenland, Alaska and Canada (1). As the life expectancy is about 10 years shorter in Greenland than in Denmark, it could be expected that neurodegenerative diseases which often occur late in life are relatively rare in Greenland. PD has an increasing prevalence later in life. A twofold higher prevalence of PD in the Faroe Islands and Greenland than in Denmark was expected from data of crude levodopa use (LDU) in the Faroe Islands and Denmark (2). High levodopa use has also been found in other countries such as Iceland (3). We evaluated the prevalence of PD among Inuit in Greenland in a case-finding study using the methods of cases ascertainment used in the Faroe Islands and on the island of Als (4,5).

Key Words:

• Parkinson’s disease
• age-adjusted prevalences