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Nicotine Improves Brain Function In Schizophrenics
An anonymous reader suggests a Cosmos Magazine note that nicotine has been shown to enhance attention and memory in schizophrenics. Research is now aimed at developing new treatments that could relieve symptoms and prevent smoking-related deaths. "A strong link between schizophrenia and smoking — with over three times as many schizophrenics smoking (70 to 90%) as the population at large — prompted scientists to investigate the link. Researchers led by Ruth Barr, a psychiatrist at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, set out to find if the nicotine in cigarettes was helping patients to overcome their difficulties with cognitive function, such as planning and memory in social and work settings."
Was this study paid for by the tobacco industry?
From TFA: We would ask patients to go without cigarettes for 12 hours.
IDIOTS. Anyone who has ever quit smoking will tell you the HELL they go through in the first few days. So they take smokers, ask them to stop smoking, MARVEL at the fact that the patient who is struggling to maintain a grasp on reality anyway - loses it, and then claim that nicotine improves brain function?
How about a different conclusion: NICOTINE WITHDRAWAL IMPAIRS BRAIN FUNCTION IN SCHIZOPHRENICS. What a shocker. Well I dunno about "Cosmos Online" being a peer reviewed journal (as if even THAT matters nowadays), but this is a classic example of bad science, or incredibly bad reporting.
A good study would be to get non smoking schizophrenics to start smoking, and see if they improve, but the ethics committee would never approve it...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No pro-nicotine article can pass without the preemptive mentioning that nicotine and smoking are bad for you.
Funny because even the doctor agrees that they shouldn't be smoking in order to treat themselves in the direct quote of his own words that I posted above. Seriously, your trolling is sloppy.
So now the government is heavily taxing a medication for a specific condition. Do you think they'll repeal these taxes, or just continue to tax wht is now medication? From what I know medications are tax-free. So now I have to get a prescription to smoke? Where do I get my cigarettes tax free?
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