{"id":804,"date":"2010-04-01T03:16:30","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T03:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/?p=804"},"modified":"2010-04-08T03:18:26","modified_gmt":"2010-04-08T03:18:26","slug":"history-of-smoking-reduces-risk-of-parkinson%e2%80%99s-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/2010\/04\/01\/history-of-smoking-reduces-risk-of-parkinson%e2%80%99s-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"History of Smoking Reduces Risk of Parkinson\u2019s Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Kelly Lohr<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Believe it or not, a new study has shown that a history of cigarette smoking may actually <em>benefit<\/em> your health.\u00a0 Over the last decade, Honglei Chen led a study out of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niehs.nih.gov\/\">National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences<\/a> in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina examining long-term health effects of the habit.\u00a0 Over 300,000 AARP members between the ages of 50 to 71 were surveyed about lifestyle choices over a ten-year period.\u00a0 Of these subjects, 0.05% of the individuals developed Parkinson&#8217;s disease.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ninds.nih.gov\/disorders\/parkinsons_disease\/parkinsons_disease.htm\">Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/a> is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the breakdown of cells which release the neurotransmitter dopamine in a brain area known as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.neuroanatomy.wisc.edu\/virtualbrain\/BrainStem\/20Substantia.html\">substantia nigra<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 Typical symptoms of <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/files\/2010\/04\/smoking_large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-810\" style=\"border: 5px solid black;margin: 5px\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/files\/2010\/04\/smoking_large-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Parkinson\u2019s include uncontrollable muscle movements, poor posture, and rigidity.\u00a0 Of the participants from Chen&#8217;s study, it was found that current smokers reduced their risk of Parkinson\u2019s disease by 44% as compared to non-smokers.\u00a0 Previous smokers who had quit reduced their risk of Parkinson\u2019s by 22%.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, the risk of developing Parkinson&#8217;s disease did not change based on how many cigarettes a person smoked per day.\u00a0 Instead, the length of the history of smoking was correlated to reduction in disease risk.\u00a0 Those who smoked for at least 40 years were 46% less likely to develop Parkinson&#8217;s, whereas those who smoked between 30 and 39 years reduced their risk by 35%.\u00a0 However, individuals who smoked for nine years or less only reduced their risk by 8%.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Chen&#8217;s findings, smoking does not slow the progression of Parkinson&#8217;s once it develops.\u00a0 For this reason, experts do not suggest that nicotine or other chemicals in cigarettes should be considered as effective Parkinson\u2019s disease treatments.\u00a0 Despite this, an improved understanding of the mechanisms behind the reduced risk may lead to breakthroughs in the causes of the disease.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.neurology.org\/cgi\/content\/abstract\/74\/11\/878\">http:\/\/www.neurology.org\/cgi\/content\/abstract\/74\/11\/878<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kelly Lohr Believe it or not, a new study has shown that a history of cigarette smoking may actually benefit your health.\u00a0 Over the last decade, Honglei Chen led a study out of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina examining long-term health effects of the habit.\u00a0 Over &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/2010\/04\/01\/history-of-smoking-reduces-risk-of-parkinson%e2%80%99s-disease\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">History of Smoking Reduces Risk of Parkinson\u2019s Disease<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":278,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2075,2073],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain-and-body","category-disease"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/278"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}