Smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee may protect people from Parkinson's disease(File Photo)

    BEIJING, April 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee may protect people from Parkinson's disease, according to a new study in the April issue of Archives of Neurology out Tuesday.

   "What this study tells us is there is something about cigarette smoking and consuming caffeine that alters the biology underpinning of Parkinson's disease," said Professor William Scott,a leading researcher at the Institute of Human Genomics at the University of Miami.

    This case-control study of those with Parkinson's in families included 356 Parkinson's disease patients (averaging about 66 years of age) and 317 of their family members (averaging almost 64 years of age).

    Individuals with Parkinson's disease were 44 percent less likely to report ever smoking and 70 percent less likely to report current smoking compared with unaffected relatives, the study authors found.

    Previous studies have suggested that smokers and coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. However, this is the first study to look specifically at cigarette smoking and caffeine consumption within families affected by the disease, the researchers said.

    However, WIlliam Scott also emphasised that "they (smoking and caffeine) are just pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and we are putting it together, but don't have all the pieces yet so we don't have it all figured out yet."

    "We're not advocating that people drink coffee and smoke cigarettes," said Burton Scott, an associate clinical professor of medicine at Duke University, who also worked on the study.

    Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disease that involves the loss of a specific group of neurons in the substantia nigra that produce dopamine. Sufferers experience a range of symptoms, including a tremor, other motor problems, depression, and cognitive disturbance.

    The disease itself is not fatal, but involves severe reduction in quality of life and the symptoms can often cause complications such as choking or pneumonia in advanced patients.

    It affects one in 100 people over the age of 60 in U.S., although 5 to 10 percent of cases occur in people 40 or younger, according to the National Parkinson Foundation.

    (Agencies)