Michael J. Fox Foundation

[Vocalek]

The Michael J. Fox Foundation is funding quite a bit of research on nicotine's effects on preventing and treating Parkinson's disease.

Our Research - MJFF Funding Portfolio - Searchable Database of All Funded Grants - The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

And lookie there. One of their research projects is using a Targacept product. I've written about them before. Maybe FDA wants us to switch to high-cost prescription drugs instead of using nicotine to prevent or treat disease.

 

[Vocalek]

Did a search for Smoking on the Web Site

Search - The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

 

[jj2]

Have you approached them? Or maybe CASAA should.
It’d be interesting to hear their response.

 

[Vocalek]

I did. I have sent off an email, identifying myself as a board member of CASAA.

 

[jj2]

Then we wait in anticipation.

 

[JerryRM]

The FDA is probably drafting a letter to them, telling them cease and desist with their nicotine research, or else. Only BP knows what's good for us !!!

 

[lonercom]

This article is from 2007 on Nicotine and Alzheimers:

Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug

This one is on Ulcerative Colitis:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1496690/pdf/bmjcred00596-0030.pdf

Nicotine and dementia:

Nicotinic receptors in aging and dementia.

Nicotine and depression:

Depression – How Organic Nicotine Can Help

Nicotine and Parkinsons

Parkinson's Disease: Nicotine Reduces Levodopa-induced Dyskinesias

Tobacco, coffee, and Parkinson's disease -- Martyn and Gale 326 (7389): 561 -- BMJ

I Like this one:

Nicotine Benefits

In an article in The Times of London (9/7/93), Dr. James Le Fanu provided an examination of the research on smoking and its apparent protective effect for certain diseases. Dr. Le Fanu stated unequivocally: "Smokers have a 50 per cent reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's--and the more smoked the greater the protection." He also noted that emerging research points to a similar effect of smoking on Parkinson's disease.

Time to send MJF and e-cig

 

[Vocalek]

Thanks for those links. In poking around, I came across this publication by the Alzheimer's Foundation. http://www.alz.org/national/documents/checklist_10signs.pdf

The reason I list it here is that I notice when I was nicotine abstinent for 6 months about 19 years ago, I actually had 5 of the 10 "early warning signs". I found this very upsetting and frightening. Most of these symptoms abated after I went back to smoking, but I believe that this 6 month period of nicotine abstinence did some permenent damage, by allowing the alpha-synuclein proteins to build up in my brain. My recall never quite got back to what it was before.

My 88-year old mother has been diagnosed with Dementia with Lewy Bodies. DLB is related to Parkinsons and includes some of the gait and balance issues. She has all of the symptoms described here: Dementia with Lewy Bodies

I am convinced that if I give up nicotine, some day I, too, will be seeing a demon no one else can see living in my curio cabinet, and believe that the television station is airing pictures of my dead relatives, asking people to phone in to claim them.

 

[SpiritAir]

This is VERY interesting to me....Thank You for sharing this info!!!
Greatly Appreciated!.............

 

[Kate51]

This could be something Vocalek....quitting can be dangerous to your health! Thanks ALL for the Links...I need a bigger space!!!
I do know that brain function differs on the amount of nicotine one takes in....I do 6mg for a couple days down from 12mg, and now that I know what to pay attention to it is very evident to me, personally. That's a tiny amount. I feel compelled to increase it again. And I think I can say it is not a withdrawal issue.
And that has to do with just memory recall and awareness. What else might be involved may be eluding me. Bless your Mom Elaine.
I was off cigarettes only twice (long enough to be counted) and that was when I got pregnant with both my girls. I couldn't stand cigs. But what harm have I done! But also I do know that smoking mothers can be hurting their babies, that may be true: both also have ADD. Of course, their parents also both have it. My mother never smoked either, but still had two of four of her children with ADD. Nurture or Nature.

 

[Vocalek]

This could be something Vocalek....quitting can be dangerous to your health! Thanks ALL for the Links...I need a bigger space!!!
I do know that brain function differs on the amount of nicotine one takes in....I do 6mg for a couple days down from 12mg, and now that I know what to pay attention to it is very evident to me, personally. That's a tiny amount. I feel compelled to increase it again. And I think I can say it is not a withdrawal issue.
And that has to do with just memory recall and awareness. What else might be involved may be eluding me. Bless your Mom Elaine.
I was off cigarettes only twice (long enough to be counted) and that was when I got pregnant with both my girls. I couldn't stand cigs. But what harm have I done! But also I do know that smoking mothers can be hurting their babies, that may be true: both also have ADD. Of course, their parents also both have it. My mother never smoked either, but still had two of four of her children with ADD. Nurture or Nature.

Correlation is not necessarily causation. Yes, perhaps the ADD rate is higher for children of mothers who smoked. But maybe the reason the mother smoked in the first place is that smoking helped to ward off her own symptoms of ADD, which her children would have inherited, even if she had not smoked.

Knowing what cruel diseases the dementias are, it is inhumane of the tobacco Control Community to insist on total nicotine abstinence as the only acceptable smoking cessation route. Many of these folks are scientists. If they don't know that nicotine protects the brain against these diseases, they should know. Thousands of lay persons understand that. I think that on some level they must know, but are pretending they don't know, so that their little world view isn't upset.