HAVING anxiety could be an early sign of Parkinson's, a new study suggests. Researchers found over-50s with the mental health condition - which affects around one in 10 Brits - were twice as likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's than those without. The authors said: "There was a two-fold increase in risk of Parkinson's in patients with first presentation of anxiety aged above 50.

"The clinical features of those who developed Parkinson's can help identify patients presenting with anxiety who are in the early stage of the condition." They hope their findings will lead to earlier diagnoses and better treatments. To investigate the link, scientists at University College London used UK primary care data from 109,435 patients who had developed anxiety after the age of 50 and compared them to 878,256 matched controls who did not have anxiety between 2008 and 2018.

They then tracked the presence of Parkinson’s symptoms - such as sleep problems, depression, tremor and balance impairment - from the point of their anxiety diagnosis up until one year before the date of a Parkinson’s diagnosis. The team found that the risk of developing Parkinson’s increased two-fold in people with anxiety, compared to the control group. Symptoms like depression, sleep disturbance, fatigue, cognitive impairment, low blood pressure , tremor, rigidity, poor balance and constipation were also found to be risk factors for developing Parkinson’s in people with anxiety.

The results, published in the B.