How bad is nicotine by itself?

[Jerethustra]

I've had many friends ask about e-cigarettes since I started vaping. The usual question is, is it healtheir? My response is usually that yes it is healthier. Much healthier. You don't get any tar, carbon monoxide or any of the other chemicals that tobacco combustion creates. I smoked all natural RYO tobacco so I usually don't bring up the added chemicals that cigarettes have. I then mention as a rhetorical question, how bad is nicotine by itself?

I don't have an aswer to that. Is it any worse than caffiene? Has there been any studies on plain nicotine consumption?

Everything seems to mention tobacco in the studies of nicotine, such as the following:

The medical consequences of nicotine exposure result from effects of both the nicotine itself and how it is taken. The most deleterious effects of nicotine addiction are the result of tobacco use, which accounts for one-third of all cancers. Foremost among the cancers caused by tobacco is lung cancer-the number one cancer killer of both men and women. Cigarette smoking has been linked to about 90 percent of all lung cancer cases.

 

[Jerethustra]

Oops probably should have posted this in Health, Safety and E-Smoking.

 

[BrennaK]

Everyone I've asked in terms of MDs have given me the caffeine analogy that you allude to above. Indeed, in a large enough dose, nicotine is deadly. I seem to recall somewhere in the ballpark of the nic equivalent of a pack and a half of cigarettes ingested all at once. Its long term effects are also similar to caffeine, including weakening of vascular structure and irregular heartbeat. My take on their advice was that it was fairly similar unless taken in a large dose.

 

[dormouse]

Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor. It can affect blood pressure, cause rapid or irregular heartbeat, headaches and other symptoms

Nicotine is a skin irritant. It can cause sore tongue, throat and even lungs. It can cause bleeding and receding gums.

Some more symptoms here, for nicotine inhalers and patches
http://www.drugs.com/sfx/nicotine-side-effects.html

As for is vaping healthier than breathing burning leaves and paper, tar, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide? What do you think?

 

[jeremie]

Discovery Health "How can nicotine be good for me?"

 

[pyro12]

Makes you smarter. http://mangans.blogspot.com/2007/12/more-performance-enhancement.htmlNicotine increases performance on IQ tests:

Two experiments investigating the effects of nicotine on performance in the inspection time (IT) procedure are reported. Experiment 1 compared ITs in smoking (0.8 mg nicotine cigarette), sham-smoking, and no-smoking conditions. IT was significantly shorter in the smoking condition as compared to both the no-smoking or sham-smoking conditions, suggesting that nicotine enhances early information processing. This result is of particular interest because of the correlation between IT and IQ reported in previous experiments. The nicotine related decrease in IT raises the possibility that nicotine enhances at least a subset of the physiological processes underlying intellectual performance.

Nicotine even increases scores on the Raven Progressive Matrices test.

Nicotine has recently been shown to enhance measures of information processing speed including the decision time (DT) component of simple and choice reaction time and the string length measure of evoked potential waveform complexity. Both (DT and string length) have been previously demonstrated to correlate with performance on standard intelligence tests (IQ). We therefore hypothesised that nicotine is acting to improve intellectual performance on the elementary information processing correlates of IQ. In the current experiment we tested this hypothesis using the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) test. APM scores were significantly higher in the smoking session compared to the non-smoking session, suggesting that nicotine acts to enhance physiological processes underlying performance on intellectual tasks.

 

[dee5]

Very nicely said Pyro! It is also helpful with depression and is being researched as a treatment for Alzheimers.

 

[JWebb]

I think it is similar to the effects of caffeine

 

[ShannonA]

Major differences I know of between nicotine and Caffeine are:

A. Caffeine processes through the body considerably faster

B. Nicotine has a much higher toxicity in fact if I'm not mistaken nicotine has a higher toxicity than (that extremely addictive white powder substance) It is theoretically possible to OD on Caffeine but it looks like it would take an incredibly high dose.

C. Caffeine is sometimes said to CAUSE depression and conversely nicotine has been said may possibly relieve depression symptoms.

Other than that from what I've read so far the two are remarkably similar in their effects on the body.

 

[earthpig]

Good. It might help in those occasional "brain farts' my wife claims I have.
Ha!

Pig out

 

[Red Dog]

The Truth About Nicotine

Some very interesting reading.

 

[jlarsen]

I think that this is the $1 million question. Most nicotine studies, it would seem are done with some sort of tobacco product that in the very least contains much greater levels of TSNAs, and probably a lot of other cr*p. I don't think anyone really knows the answer.

Nic being a vasoconstrictor, like caffeine, but not metabolizing into other components which also have vasodialator effects, it would stand to reason that it is slightly worse, healthwise, than caffeine.

However, a lot of vapers report lowered blood pressure and heart rate after switching to vaping from smoking.

The addictiveness of nicotine, once regarded as one of the most addictive substances, has also been questioned when it isn't used in combination with the chemicals in cigarettes that have an effect similar to MAOIs. Some vapers also seem to be more addicted to the act of smoking than the nicotine itself, which is possibly why so many people that take chantix or use the patch or the gum eventually return to smoking.

Clearly the fact that vaping or just getting nicotine and not all the other substances in tobacco reduces most of the TSNAs, soot (tar), smoke, and other lung irritants and carcinogens that regular tobacco products have, is likely to eliminate all the cancer and lung disease, not to mention the effect of carbon monoxide on reducing blood oxygen levels.

IMO, it seems that nicotine itself is not as dangerous or addictive as it was once thought. But I don't think sufficient studies have been done on the subject, because most nicotine studies are really tobacco studies, and because the "fact" that nicotine is highly addictive and detrimental to heart and vascular health is so ingrained in everyone that most people probably don't think there is any reason to study it further.

I think that adding theobromine to nic juice might be a good way to counteract the vasoconstrictive effects of the nicotine, and might even be a good alternative to nicotine, but I've never tried it and can't say for sure that it is safe, though theobromine powder is available for purchase on some internet sites. Some have added caffeine to ejuice, despite protests that it was risky, and I haven't heard about any problems.

 

[lazymitch]

Some have added caffeine to ejuice, despite protests that it was risky, and I haven't heard about any problems.

I couldn't fathom how it would be an issue - but what do I know

 

[rolygate]

The post here was moved to The Library, as we didn't have anything specifically on the safety of long-term nicotine use.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/ecf-library/265539-safety-long-term-nicotine-use.html

 

[Slim Batz]

When I go into a pharmacy and see all the pretty boxes of nicotine gum, patches, lozenges etc available for me to buy without prescription... products whose only purpose is to deliver nicotine ... and all with the loving approval of HC / FDA ... that shoud tell you something.

 

[peacegirl64]

Nicotine has been used to lessen tics caused by Tourette Syndrome.