Does Cigarette Smoking Have a Protective Effect Against Parkinson's Disease?

Objective: Previous studies reported that individuals with Parkinson’s disease are less likely to have smoking history and it seems that nicotine has a neuroprotective effect. The authors have conducted a casecontrol retrospective study to determine if there is an association between cigarette smoking and Parkinson’s disease.

Methods: In a matched case-control study, 92 individuals with Parkinson’s disease (71 men, 21 women; mean age: 67.3±11 year) were compared to 184 people without such a diagnosis. (144 men, 40 women; mean age: 65.7±12.3 year).

Results: Nineteen patients in the group with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (20.6%) were smoker. In the control group, however, there were 103 smokers. Also, we found a dose-response correlation between amount of smoking and higher risk of having Parkinson’s diseas.

Conclusion: Consistent with the results of previous studies, we found that individuals with Parkinson’s disease are significantly less likely to have smoked regularly than those without Parkinson’s disease.

Keywords

Cigarette smoking

Nicotine

Parkinson Disease

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