Does a Pepper a Day Keep Parkinson's Away?

Does a Pepper a Day Keep Parkinson's Away?

By Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today
Published: May 09, 2013
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner

Peppers, a nicotine-containing vegetable in the same family as tobacco, are associated with a lower relative risk of Parkinson's disease, researchers reported.

In a population-based case-control study, consumption of nicotine-containing vegetables – mainly peppers – was inversely associated with Parkinson's, according to Susan Searles Nielsen, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The effect was mainly noticeable among people who had never smoked, and other vegetables had no association with the neurological disease, Searles Nielsen and colleagues reported online in Annals of Neurology.

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