Chili Pepper is Good for You
From: Andy Soos, ENN
The chili pepper is the fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the
nightshade family, Solanaceae. Chili peppers originated in the Americas. Chili
pepper has spread across the world and is used in both food and medicine.
New research has
revealed that Solanaceae—a flowering plant family with some species producing
foods that are edible sources of nicotine—may provide a protective effect
against Parkinson's disease.
The study appears in the
Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and
Child Neurology Society. It suggests that eating foods that contain even a
small amount of nicotine, such as peppers and tomatoes, may reduce risk of
developing Parkinson's.
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. The motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease result from the death of dopamine-generating cells; the cause of this cell death is unknown.
Early in the course of
the disease, the most obvious symptoms are movement-related; these include
shaking, rigidity, slowness of movement and difficulty with walking and gait.
Later, cognitive and behavioral problems may arise, with dementia commonly
occurring in the advanced stages of the disease. Other symptoms include
sensory, sleep and emotional problems. PD is more common in the elderly, with
most cases occurring after the age of 50.
Nearly one million
Americans have Parkinson's, with 60,000 new cases diagnosed in the U.S. each
year, and up to ten million individuals worldwide live with this disease
according to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. Previous studies have found
that cigarette smoking and other forms of tobacco, also a Solanaceae plant,
reduced relative risk of Parkinson's disease.
However, experts have
not confirmed if nicotine or other components in tobacco provide a protective
effect, or if people who develop Parkinson's disease are simply less apt to use
tobacco because of differences in the brain that occur early in the disease
process, long before diagnosis.
For the present
population-based study Dr. Susan Searles Nielsen and colleagues from the University
of Washington in Seattle recruited 490 patients newly diagnosed with
Parkinson's disease at the university's Neurology Clinic or a regional health
maintenance organization, Group Health Cooperative. Another 644 unrelated
individuals without neurological conditions were used as controls.
Questionnaires were used to assess participants' lifetime diets and tobacco use, which researchers defined as ever smoking more than 100 cigarettes or regularly using cigars, pipes or smokeless tobacco.
Questionnaires were used to assess participants' lifetime diets and tobacco use, which researchers defined as ever smoking more than 100 cigarettes or regularly using cigars, pipes or smokeless tobacco.
Vegetable consumption in
general did not affect Parkinson's disease risk, but as consumption of edible
Solanaceae increased, Parkinson's disease risk decreased, with peppers
displaying the strongest association. Researchers noted that the apparent
protection from Parkinson's occurred mainly in men and women with little or no
prior use of tobacco, which contains much more nicotine than the foods studied.
"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."
The authors recommend
further studies to confirm and extend their findings, which could lead to
possible interventions that prevent Parkinson's disease.
For further information
see Pepper Parkinson
