title: Tomatoes and Parkinson's disease.
abstract: Recent developments have focused attention on the possibility that a toxic environmental factor may be the cause of Parkinson's disease (PD). A hypothesis seeking to explain the cause of PD must explain its worldwide distribution, the small percentage of the population affected, geographic variations in prevalence and why PD was unrecognized prior to the early nineteenth century. The difficulties in finding a ubiquitous environmental agent which could account for these observations, may be illustrated by considering the hypothesis that such an agent may be a constituent of a common plant such as the tomato. This hypothesis meets all the necessary prerequisites. It is testable and appears to be an excellent starting point from which to search for the cause of PD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick 08903-0019.
authors.forename: J I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Sage
mesh_terms: D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005638:Fruit / Q000506:poisoning*; D006801:Humans; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000209:etiology*; D012307:Risk Factors