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Peppers Seem To Protect Against Parkinson's
DavidHumus writes "A recent study indicates that consuming vegetables from the Solanaceae family, which includes tomatoes and peppers (as well as tobacco), decreases the risk of contracting Parkinson's disease. Earlier studies had shown that smoking tobacco seems to provide protection against the disease and the newer one seems to confirm that the key ingredient is nicotine, which is present in some vegetables like peppers."
You wont get Parkinson's because you'll be dead before it could form.
(sardonic)
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Tomacco.
I know it's in bad taste, but I'd pay anything to see Michael J Fox doing a Frank's RedHot Commercial splattering sauce everywhere while having a case of the shakes.
I PUT THAT SH*T ON EVERYTHING!!!!
Yeah, but ya know that time traveling shit did have some side effects.
&The title says peppers but it says nicotine is actually the chemical at work. There are actually a few positive effects nicotine possesses, the negative effects of smoking are mediated by the oxidation products of cigarettes.
There are actually quite a few common plants in the family with varying levels of nicotine in each part (tomatoes vs the leaves). Some, like datura (moon flower/jimsons or devils weed) contain scopalamine and atropine and are deleriants. From wiki:
The family includes Solanum (potato, tomato, eggplant), Physalis philadelphica (tomatillo), Capsicum (chili pepper, bell pepper), Petunia, Datura, (Cape gooseberry flower), Mandragora (mandrake), Nicotiana (tobacco), Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade), Lycium barbarum (wolfberry), and Physalis peruviana.
So I got that goin' for me. Which is nice.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Woody Allen character in the distant future, noticing many people smoking, is told "we discovered that tobacco is good for you".
Anecdotal, but the only relative I have that smokes...is the only one that got Parkinson's.
I come here for the love
From TFA
"Our study is the first to investigate dietary nicotine and risk of developing Parkinson's disease," said Dr. Searles Nielsen. "Similar to the many studies that indicate tobacco use might reduce risk of Parkinson's, our findings also suggest a protective effect from nicotine, or perhaps a similar but less toxic chemical in peppers and tobacco."
Tobacco and solanaceae plants have in common a lot of chemicals, including multiple alkaloids like atropine. Potato plants fall into the same family, as do all chili pepper plants. While this is an interesting study, it does NOT confirm that nicotine is the chemical in solanaceae that is protective against Parkinson's disease, even before you take into account that this was only a retrospective study.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Looks like eating spicy food and smoking cigars is good for you, thanks science :-)
This article solves a mystery that has puzzled my family for years. My dad suffered Parkinsonism for many years, and most of his life favored bland food. In the last couple years of his life, when the disease was at its peak, he had an intense craving for peppers that we all thought were signs of dementia. He would not only eat peppers but sometimes eat salsa and drink hot sauce directly from jars in the fridge. So perhaps his body was craving the nicotine in the peppers, who knows. RIP.
-- Jimtown Kelly
That reminds me of some experiments to halt urinary incontinence by squirting chilli oil into people's bladders, on the assumption that by deadening some nerves their bladders would release urine less easily. The test subjects apparently insisted that it worked perfectly the first time and there was no need to do it again.