Friday, April 13, 2007

I have to believe this is not true.

Apparently smoking and drinking coffee protects you from Parkinson's disease. How can this be?!!
I know that compared to smoking-related diseases, Parkinson's is quite rare. And it might have something to do with dopamine: the great neurotransmitter associated with food, sex, drugs, etc. People who develop Parkinson's tend to have a low-level of dopamine-creating cells in the brain, and consumption of coffee and cigarettes (that sounds so nice) stimulates dopamine production. Does that then mean that depressed people (sigh), who sometimes have an imbalance in their dopamine levels, also have a greater chance of developing Parkinson's?!

Couldn't they hide that little scientific finding? Don't give smokers any more reasons not to quit, for god's sake.

Clearly, day 46 of quitting smoking has been a hard one for me. I'm double-fisting coffee.

Read the article here.

2 comments:

Shiny said...

My grandfather smoked BelAirs for 50 years and downed at least 3 cups of coffee a day for most of his life. He didn't die from heart disease and he didn't die of lung cancer. He died of complications from Parkinson's.

I think you just have to give in to the inevitable: Something, someday, will get you. Just hope it isn't awful and spin that wheel. For myself, I hope to go out like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I hear that freezing is very pleasant. And raving and screaming while chasing children through the snow is always a blast.

Flushy McBucketpants said...

When you said you liked Dark Victory, was that Batman: Dark Victory or some other Dark Victory? 'Cause Batman: Dark Victory is also pretty noir-ish. Plus it has Batman. I would recommend reading Batman: The Long Holloween first though. Batman is cool.