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Nicotine Is the New Wonder Drug
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.
This certainly sounds too good to be true. Makes me wonder who's funding the research.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.
Stop making me smoke you damned scientists!
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
quit smoking after 15 years. What a bitch. And NOW they say that the nicotine is good?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that while the nicotine makes quitting smoking hard to do, its health effect is not as great as that of the other substances in smoke such as tar. That's what gives you lung cancer, not the nicotine itself.
I can kind of vouch for this. Usually when I have my first smoke of the day I have to use the can soon after. I always thought they just put laxatives in cigarettes..
Today's Tomorrow is Yesterday's Future! --- "Where Ever You Go, There You Are" -- Diablo 1
You're overreacting. It's all about the dosage and usage.
;).
Lots of people go for botox treatments, and allegedly some of them end up looking better
People consume poisons all the time - capsaicin (in spicy foods), cyanide (in almonds), caffeine, and nicotine. Chrysanthemum is often made into a tea, but it contains pyrethrum which is a "natural pesticide".
In fact, it may be that a lot of smokers are dying more due to the radioactivity than the nicotine or tar.
wiki: "One study found that tobacco grown in India averaged only 0.09 pCi per gram of polonium 210, whereas tobacco grown in the United States averaged 0.516 pCi per gram."
"In support of this hypothetical link between radioactive elements in tobacco and cancer is the observation that bladder cancer incidence is also proportional to the amount of tobacco smoked, even though nonradioactive carcinogens have not been detected in the urine of even heavy smokers; however, urine of smokers contains about six times more polonium 210 than that of nonsmokers, suggesting strongly that the polonium 210 is the cause of the bladder carcinogenicity, and would be expected to act similarly in the lungs and other tissue."
The idea is that nicotine releases happy chemicals in your brain. I think we've already known this for a while - it's why it's so hard to quit smoking. Now they are realizing that happy chemicals can treat some psychological disorders. Plausible. However, there is a problem with this theory that we've recognized for a long time. When we artifically create these chemicals in the brain via medications or other chemicals and drugs, we get used to having the feeling. Then, in ordinary situations where we are supposed to experience happiness (ex. a day off, a sunny day, a good dessert, a good song) we don't feel anything. This leads further into depression because people literally cannot find happiness in activities they once found enjoyable. Any of the "happy chemicals" that might go off naturaly are so negligible compared to the constant chemicals caused by the drugs that the good experiences may just as well have never happened. So, nicotine makes you happy? Probably. Can help with certain mental disorders? Again, probably. But should it be used / is it the best solution? That is what's debatable.
"if only i had known i would have been a locksmith." -albert einstein
I had a bout of depression last year and I saw a psychiatrist. I went over my life history. At the end of the session, he recommended a cocktail of 3 different drugs! Apparently because I had had a manic episode once in my life when I was in high-school, I was a manic-depressive. I needed one drug for the depression, one for the mania, and some other one. Jesus Christ.
I stopped seeing him. I was looking into 'legal' highs for depression, such as St. John's Wort and
Since I also had problems concentrating, I tried smoking for the nicotine. I found that it really helped with my anxiety. I took a smoke after work, I relaxed, and then moved my bowels. I felt calm and focused rather than frenzied and harried. Things were right on course instead of all over the place. I've since given it up, however, since I started coughing.
I know smoking destroys your lungs gives you cancer after decades. My maternal grandparents died of cancers in their 60s, probably from smoking. All the people I try to turn on to smoking tell me that. But what are the long-term effects of taking anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication for decades.
It seems to me that cigarettes are a relatively cheap and simple anti-depressant. Although there are long term health consequences, we don't really know what the damage is from decades of wellbutrin. Of course, Big Pharma would rather have us rely on them for anti-depressants than use a simple plant that we could grow ourselves... Hey, that sounds familiar.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
My gay office-mate thoroughly enjoys his daily fags ;)
(that's a UK-centric joke, sorry)
Oh and he's giggling over my shoulder now.
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
I'm surprised at your typing prowess given that type of activity. o.O
Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus.
We're going to replace a $2.50 pack of cigarettes with a $400 bottle of pills, and declare victory! I would be more than willing to bet that even if you factor in the eventual risk cost of cancer and other smoking related diseases, it might still come in cheaper than the cost of exotic drugs based on nicotine. The moral of the story is, smoke up to avoid depression, and hope science comes up with a cheaper pill to cure cancer.
This is my sig.
Packaged in a 20 dose per container. New fashionable "inhaler" delivery system. Regular, 100 and 120 mg sizes. To take the new drugs you light the end of the inhaler tube and inhale the refreshing vapor. The dose burns with a pleasing aroma and relaxing patterns of vapor. 20 doses, take as needed 20 times per day or more. Packed in soft of hard pack box and cartons. Available at most gas stations. Menthol and other flavors available. NOW over the counter!
Welcome to a healthy new you.
The separate story referred to on the lead article is not about nicotine, it's about smoking. My dissertation was based on showing that at least one substance that prevented Parkinson's was active in the brains of smokers despite 8+ hours of abstinence (reduction of plasma nicotine levels to less than 1% of usual). I tested smokers abstaining and after smoking either a normal cigarette or one made from denicotinized tobacco and found no difference between conditions or groups. Nicotine or lack thereof had nothing to do with the EEG signature of chronic increased dopamine levels compared to non-smokers (which was the study I did prior to my diss). This work, and that of the folks in the chemistry department that isolated and synthesized the hypothesized active component, was what was referred to in "Thank You For Smoking". And to preempt any conclusion jumping, this doesn't mean you should smoke. Knowing what the substance is (trimethyl naphthoquinone) and how it works (dopamine releaser and reuptake blocker as well as MAO inhibitor) means it or something that does the same thing can be developed and used without needing tobacco in the process.
The carbon monoxide effect has some merit too. CO in the blood scavenges excess hyperoxides, a source of oxidative stress which is a known cause of Parkinson's and other apparent autoimmune problems. As above, you don't need to smoke to get the effect and can obviously find other things to do the same job. They're called anti-oxidants.
Nicotine may well also have some other protective effect, but it doesn't prevent mitochondrial MPTP from turning into MPP+, a very potent neurotoxin that causes Parkinsonian apoptosis. To read up on the mechanism, look up the "frozen addicts". As an interesting aside, at least one of them was all but completely cured in weeks using injected stem cells before the fundies got ahold of the concept and strangled it.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I'm not sure why this is so hard for some people to swallow. Most drugs that have such an obvious and strong effect on people and have been tested on millions with few adverse effects (all the bad effects of smoking come mostly from the smoke + chronic use—the nicotine merely makes it addictive) usually yield other valuable research output.
I don't see any reason to let emotional value judgments get in the way of potentially valuable medical applications. Let's turn that frown upside down and make a negative into a positive!
Disclaimer: No I'm not a drug company representative nor a smoking advocate.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
By scientific literature, LSD is one of the SAFEST drugs known to man and completely non-addictive. Seriously (it stunned me too, I've been trying to find any valid finding of dangers for a while.) Flashbacks appear to be a psychological effect and rare, more like Viet Nam vet's flashbacks.
Here's some perspective in people averaging over 3 drinks of alcohol per day, PERMANENT deficiencies in problem solving, concentration and memory begin to appear. (This is a statistic, so it is probably people who binge drink on weekends that have the damage, not those who have a few every day. I'm sure you remember mornings when you had brain damage.)
The relapse rates for quitting smokers are on par with heroin addicts.