A 2024 study shows a potential 189% growth in PD by 2050 versus 0% for all diseases/health conditions. It shows Parkinson’s could almost triple by 2050, much more than diseases and conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, Heart Conditions and Cancer.
I am a bored CPA up in the middle of the night and as a result I stumbled upon a remarkable article in the Lancet published May 18, 2024 called Burden of disease scenarios for 204 countries and territories, 2022–2050: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. It contains a huge amount of data regarding Parkinson’s (and a host of other diseases).
They set out two projections for 2050 for a huge list of known diseases – a Reference Scenario (the most likely projection of the disease) and three scenarios which together make a combined scenario, taking into account improvements to society from “Alternative scenarios as follows: Safer Environment scenario (A), Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario (B), Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination Scenario”
The results are staggering – see the chart below. It shows that assuming there are positive developments in childhood nutrition, the environment,and management of behaviors/metabolic risks, many currently impacting diseases and causes of death will reduce or at least plateau and presumably expose more people to age related and brain related conditions increasing significantly the numbers with Parkinson’s. This is great for society at large driving down the rate of disease and having a dramatic impact on Heart Disease, Diabetes it has the opposite effect on Parkinson’s.
According to their projections this will cause Parkinson’s could almost triple to from 7.5 million cases in 2022 to a scenario of up to 22 million cases.
Without any impact of these factors the growth is still very significant – a rise from 7.5 million cases in 2022 to a projected 16.8 million by 2050, only behind Alzheimer’s in growth.
What does that mean – I think it is clear. Parkinson’s today has no cure and is hard/takes time to diagnose. Its symptoms are truly horrible and its degenerative nature makes it cruel to say the least. A near tripling of the number of patients whilst other conditions stabilize is too horrible to think about. Surely it is a call for the necessary bodies and organizations to increase the funding into getting ahead of the disease.
Of course this is one source of data but other studies point to similar growth rates for example this study of the US published on Current and projected future economic burden of Parkinson’s disease in the U.S.
It looks like we have a challenge on our hands and we need to get working!!!
