title: Parkinson's Disease in the Gulf Countries: An Updated Review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Arabian Gulf region is a rapidly developing part of the world. With the increase in average life-expectancy, idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD), is also expected to increase in prevalence. Furthermore, the high rate of consanguinity among Arabs probably makes familial cases of PD more likely to be encountered than other areas in the world. This review provides an update on the published literature on sporadic and familial PD in Gulf Arabs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although the Arab population of this region shares religious beliefs and demographic characteristics with other Arabs, their environmental exposures and genetic makeup may be different. This could account for the relatively low prevalence of PD reported in the Al-Thugba study (27 per 100,000) compared with prevalence rates by most other studies on Arab (mainly North African) populations (31.4-557.4 per 100,000).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Gulf countries are considered rich countries, which makes conducting nation-wide or even international studies logistically easier than it is in many other countries. Such multinational research can be organized by the existing Gulf Cooperation Council, or through a collaboration of the Ministries of Health. This would, hopefully, culminate in the introduction of more research centers, as well as the implementation of better health care policies and practices for the ageing community.
authors.affiliation: New Zealand Brain Research Institute, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Yassar
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Alamri
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: MacAskill
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Hani
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Benamer
mesh_terms: D018912:Arabs; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008877:Middle East / Q000453:epidemiology; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D055815:Young Adult