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.

Oh great

[BlackCobra43 (596714)]

Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.

Stop making me smoke you damned scientists!

Re:Oh great

[niceone (992278)]

Stop making me smoke you damned scientists!

I'm surprised they are letting lab beagles post on slashdot, is it the result of some animal rights campaign?

Oh great

[by Anonymous Coward]

quit smoking after 15 years. What a bitch. And NOW they say that the nicotine is good?

Re:Oh great

[necro81 (917438)]

Well, nicotine is a tremendously addictive substance, like heroin, and a powerful stimulant to the body. It screws around with the all kinds of chemical receptors in the brain, including the ones that allow you to feel good. This is why a smoker in need of a fix is usually irritable and grumpy before taking that first sweet drag.

But, you are right, the real danger with smoking is, well, smoking all the other shit that's in cigarettes - the nicotine is a secondary concern. The danger of the nicotine in cigarettes is the fact that it keeps you addicted.

Re:Oh great

[BluBrick (1924)]

You gave up smoking? There's half your problem!

It's in your language - you see not smoking as a sacrifice. Every time you mention to anyone that you're giving up, you subtly reinforce to yourself the idea that you are depriving yourself of something pleasurable.

I stopped smoking instead of giving up. I made a point of referring to it in that fashion. The thing is, because of that attitude, I made sure I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything.

Giving up smoking is hard - I tried it several times. Stopping smoking is much easier.

Re:Oh great

[Ohreally_factor (593551)]

You can spin it positively as much as you like, but you two are still a couple of quitters.

The real problem

[stormi (837687)]

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.

better than SSRI?

[lawpoop (604919)]

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.

Re:better than SSRI?

[Lord Ender (156273)]

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,

That's gold! Seriously, you just can't write comedy like that intentionally.

You have to love corporate pharma...

[tjstork (137384)]

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.

New nicotine drugs, for a healthy you....

[bodland (522967)]

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"

[DynaSoar (714234)]

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.

Re:Suspicious at best.

[Timesprout (579035)]

Phillip Morris Healthcare

Re:Suspicious at best.

[canUbeleiveIT (787307)]

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.

Re:Suspicious at best.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Depends on who I was administering it to...

Re:Suspicious at best.

[beckerist (985855)]

*sigh* Go calm down, have yourself a cigarette...

Re:Suspicious at best.

[LS (57954)]

Who said that cigarettes had to be the delivery mechanism? I'm sure cigarette companies have a large stake in tobacco farms, and may even own them. Seeing the heavy legislation and the decline in smoking, they are doing what any well-run company would do, which is to pursue other markets. The nicotine has to come from somewhere.

LS

Re:Suspicious at best.

[milamber3 (173273)]

You should really know more about a subject before you go on spouting things like "You can be sure the tobacco industry is funding this research." A large portion of this funding is coming from the NIH and one of the main areas of study is smoking cessation. That most certainly does not benefit the tobacco companies. In addition, none of these studies would suggest a cigarette, dip or chew as the route of administration so once again no benefit. If anything, the pharm companies stand to gain while the tobacco companies stand to lose because the drugs in question are all synthetic nicotine like substances that are patented and solely under big pharma control.

Re:Suspicious at best.

[asliarun (636603)]

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.

Re:Suspicious at best.

[cayenne8 (626475)]

"Not exclusively nicotine. They sell an image. Nicotine is just a nice side effect that keeps people physically addicted to their stuff."

It isn't just that...for many of us, smoking is FUN. I wish to hell it wasn't bad for you...if it weren't, I'd go back to it. It just was so natural to be in a bar, have a drink in one hand...smoke in the other. It also appeals to the 'firebug' in many people. Half the fun to me was the lighting up part.

Also, was a neat way to introduce yourself to a woman...even not smoking any more, I often carry a lighter to light a smoke for her when she pulls one out.

I'm sure some people...many in fact...are very hooked to nicotine..but, not everyone. Whenever I quit (and I've gone for years at a time)..the first 2 days are a PITA...but, not that big a deal after than. I didn't really smoke 'cause I NEEDED ONE....I did it because it was fun and an enjoyable activity for me.

I don't think anyone is smoking because it "looks cool" or promotes an image. Most people I think smoke because they enjoy it and it is fun. If they came out with a harmless cigarette....I'd start smoking again immediately.

Re:Of course it does

[MoonFog (586818)]

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.

Re:'medicine'

[TheLink (130905)]

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."

Re:Wait .....

[troc (3606)]

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.

Re:Wait .....

[Jargon Scott (258797)]

I'm surprised at your typing prowess given that type of activity. o.O

Re:Nicotine and bowels

[Bourbon Man (76846)]

I quit smoking about a year ago, and I've found that there is one bad thing about quitting (at least for me). I used to always get up, have a smoke, and within minutes I would need to go poop. Since I quit smoking, my pooping schedule is all messed up. When your bowels perform like clockwork for decades, to have that schedule go awry is truly a shitty thing.