I just read Charles O'Hara's thoughtful message about smoking and had to
respond. There seem to be a number of smokers on the list who also have
PD, so obviously it's not a guaranteed solution!!! I am working on trying to
encourage a friend in his rather tenative decision to stop smoking by his
birthday, which is Dec. 1, and certainly any possible mild protection against
PD that he might lose is far outweighed by reducing his chances of lung
cancer, stroke, heart disease, and all the other diseases associated with
smoking. I hope there will be a lot of research done on this connection
but that it won't encourage anyone to start smoking or delay a decision to
quit.
Mary Vass, who has lots of other vices and achieves empathy with
her smoking friends by trying to imagine giving up chocolate :-)
