RELATED: If You Notice This in the Morning, It May Be an Early Sign of Parkinson’s. A 2013 study from the University of Washington (UW) linked peppers to a reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease. The study, which was published in the Annals of Neurology journal, analyzed 490 newly diagnosed Parkinson’s patients from the UW Neurology Clinic and 644 people with no link to the disease. The researchers found that eating peppers two to four times a week was associated with a 30 percent reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb You don’t have to limit yourself to eating peppers twice a week. According to the study, people who ate peppers daily had a 50 percent lower risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. Eating peppers any less than twice a week did not have a significant effect, however. “[This study] provides further evidence of how diet can influence our susceptibility to neurological disease—specifically Parkinson’s disease,” Kelly Changizi, MD, co-director of the Center for Neuromodulation at the Mount Sinai Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center, told WebMD. She was not involved in the study. RELATED: For more health content delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. While the highest risk reduction the researchers found was with peppers, they did find other foods that may also help lower Parkinson’s risk. According to the study, the combined consumption of peppers, tomatoes, tomato juice, and potatoes lowered the risk of Parkinson’s as well. All of these foods come from the Solanaceae family. But general consumption of vegetables not in the Solanaceae family had no effect on Parkinson’s risk, the researchers noted. This included vegetables like broccoli, carrots, and cucumbers. The Solanaceae family is a plant family that contains the chemical nicotine. According to the researchers for this study, dietary sources of nicotine may be what provides the protection against Parkinson’s disease. Peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes all contain small quantities of nicotine. But Susan Searles Nielsen, PhD, the study’s lead author and a research scientist in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, says further research is needed to confirm this, as high quantities of nicotine can have adverse health consequences like addictiveness, poisoning, and death. Searles Nielsen says there is a chance that a similar but less toxic chemical in peppers may be equally or more protective against Parkinson’s disease than nicotine. RELATED: Drinking This Kind of Water Increases Your Parkinson’s Risk, Studies Show.
