In a study from the University of Washington and elsewhere, researchers found eating nicotine-containing vegetables, such as peppers, may reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD).
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement.
Symptoms start gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. Tremors are common, but the disorder also commonly causes stiffness or slowing of movement.
Previous studies showed that smokers have a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease, and nicotine plays a big role in the effect.
In the current study, the team tested whether the risk of PD is associated with consumption of nicotine-containing edibles from the same botanical family as tobacco, Solanaceae, including peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes.
They tested 490 people newly diagnosed with PD and 644 unrelated, neurologically normal people.
They examined whether PD was associated with a self-reported typical frequency of consumption of peppers, tomatoes, tomato juice, and potatoes during adulthood while adjusting for consumption of other vegetables, age, sex, race/ethnicity, tobacco use, and caffeine.
The team found PD was inversely linked to consumption of all edible Solanaceae combined, but not the consumption of all other vegetables. This means eating nicotine-containing is linked to lower Parkinson’s disease risk.
The trend strengthened when they weighted edible Solanaceae by nicotine concentration.
An inverse association was also found for peppers specifically.
In addition, the potentially protective effect of edible Solanaceae largely occurred in men and women who had never used tobacco or who had smoked cigarettes < 10 years.
The team says dietary nicotine or other constituents of tobacco and peppers may reduce PD risk.
Confirmation and extension of these findings are needed so researchers could suggest possible dietary or drug interventions for PD prevention.
If you care about Parkinson’s disease, please read studies about a big cause of Parkinson’s disease, and natural killer cells could halt Parkinson’s progression.
For more information about cognitive health, please see recent studies about new drug that may slow or reverse age-related cognitive decline, and results showing that high blood pressure in young adulthood linked to cognitive decline in middle age.
The study is published in the Annals of Neurology and was conducted by Susan Searles Nielsen et al.
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