Abstract
Highlights•Meaning in life is an aspect of eudaimonic well-being associated with brain health.•In the large UK Biobank, meaning in life is associated with lower risk of incident PD over five years.•The association was independent of demographic, behavioral, clinical, and genetic risk factors.•The association generalized across age, sex, education, deprivation, and genetic risk.Introduction: Meaning in life is an aspect of eudaimonic well-being associated with lower dementia risk. This research examines whether this protective association extends to Parkinson’s disease (PD).Methods: Participants (N = 153,569) from the UK Biobank reported on their meaning in life. Cases of PD were identified through health records.Results: Meaning in life was associated with a 50 % lower likelihood of prevalent PD (OR = 0.68, 95 % CI = 0.59–0.78). Over the 5-year follow-up, meaning was associated with a 35 % lower risk of incident PD (HR = 0.74, 95 % CI = 0.65–0.83), an association robust to sociodemographic characteristics, depression, history of seeking mental health care, smoking, physical activity, and genetic risk and not moderated by age, sex, education, deprivation, or genetic risk.Conclusions: Meaning in life is associated with lower risk of incident PD, an association independent of other major risk factors and generalizable across sociodemographic groups. Meaning is a promising target of intervention for common neurodegenerative diseases.