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Nicotine Is the New Wonder Drug

Posted by kdawson on from the if-it-don't-kill-you-first dept.

Fantastic Lad sends us to Wired for a story on the upside of nicotine. Researchers are developing drugs based on nicotine that may prove beneficial for brains, bowels, blood vessels and immune systems. "Nicotine acts on the acetylcholine receptors in the brain, stimulating and regulating the release of a slew of brain chemicals, including seratonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Now drugs derived from nicotine and the research on nicotine receptors are in clinical trials for everything from helping to heal wounds, to depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Tourette Syndrome, ADHD, anger management and anxiety." A separate story talks about nicotine warding off Parkinson's disease.

2 of 439 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Suspicious at best. by canUbeleiveIT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess that you're intimating that the cigarette companies are pushing this.

    I'm sure that it won't be administered via a cigarette because the delivery system is important too. In the case of cigarettes, the delivery mechanism causes more harm than the nicotine helps. After all, antibiotics are good medicine but you wouldn't administer them by putting them on the tip of a knitting needle and jamming it into your eyeball.

  2. Re:Suspicious at best. by asliarun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not exclusively nicotine. They sell an image. Nicotine is just a nice side effect that keeps people physically addicted to their stuff. Sure, but so does alcohol or any other legally addictive substance. My point here is not to start a comparison war or a flame on which drug is healthier/less addictive etc. I'm just trying to point out that there is a LOT of hypocrisy surrounding cigarettes and smoking. My guess is that this hypocrisy mainly arises because smoking has now become socially unfashionable and even a taboo, at least in the US. Let me put it another way: If the same study was done about say, the beneficial effect of wines or alcohol in general, i bet you would see a tiny fraction of comments making snide remarks about the validity of the test and about the funding agency. Yes yes, I know, the tobacco industry is evil and has a history of funding shady science, but I still feel that the scorn being shown on /. is disproportionate. Heck, even a hard drug like cocaine or LSD wouldn't get this much opposition and sarcasm.