Smoking protects against Parkinson's disease

Smoking cigarettes may have at least one upside. French scientists say nicotine appears to protect people from developing Parkinson’s disease.
Researchers with the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epiniere, Hospital de la Salpetriere in Paris are not encouraging people to take up the otherwise deadly habit, but they say the discovery could lead to entirely new treatments for the neurological disease.

They said that nicotine had the potential to rescue dopamine neurons from progressive loss, which is a hallmark of the disease.

The findings suggest that it may be possible to develop novel therapies for Parkinson’s disease that target nicotine receptors in the brain.

But the researchers stress that smoking is extremely hazardous to one’s health and people should do all they can to kick the habit, or not start at all.

“If you are a smoker, don’t get too excited. Even is smoking protects you from Parkinson’s, you might not live long enough to develop the disease because smoking greatly increases the risk for deadly cancers and cardiovascular diseases. But now, we should be able to find non-toxic ways to hit the same target,” Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology’s journal, said in a statement.