Eating Peppers May Lower Parkinson's Risk

Regularly eating peppers may lower the risk of Parkinson's disease, a new study suggests.

The researchers said the benefit may be due to a substance in the vegetable that we've been advised to avoid: nicotine.
People in the study who ate peppers two times per week were 30 percent less likely to develop Parkinson's disease than people who ate peppers less than once a week.

Peppers and tobacco both belong to a family of plants called Solanaceae. As a result, peppers — be they red, yellow or green — contain tiny amounts of nicotine. Previous research has suggested that the nicotine in cigarettes and secondhand smoke may protect certain brain cells, or neurons, from the damage associated with Parkinson's.

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