Nicotine & Prenatal Exposure

[Fidola13]

i haven’t read the entire article but I don’t think it specifies if the nicotine is from just cigarettes or cigarettes and vaping.

Nicotine Affects Gene Expression in Newborns

 

[Rossum]

Exposure to nicotine during pregnancy through maternal smoking or nicotine replacement therapy is associated with adverse birth outcomes as well as several cognitive and neurobehavioral deficits.

"Is associated with" is code for: We don't know whether there's a causal relationship.

 

[bombastinator]

i haven’t read the entire article but I don’t think it specifies if the nicotine is from just cigarettes or cigarettes and vaping.

Nicotine Affects Gene Expression in Newborns

It’s vague about that. Also it vague about exactly what nicotine does to babies.

“Exposure to nicotine during pregnancy through maternal smoking or nicotine replacement therapy is associated with adverse birth outcomes as well as several cognitive and neurobehavioral deficits.”

It seems to me to be saying that babies of mothers who use nicotine during pregnancy are born addicted to nicotine and this is shown by gene expression in the baby’s DNA, which might turn out to be useful in addiction cessation research. It also attempts to describe things using the term “building block of health” though which I personally find to be suspiciously unscientific language.

The article is apparently a recounting of another article which an abstract of a third article, and is ironically much shorter.
Comparison between dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic neurons in the VTA following chronic nicotine exposure during pregnancy
This article reports that the research in question was done on rats, that the association between mothers using nicotine replacement and impairment in babies is preassumed and not actually part of the study, and that the actual change in gene expression is merely speculated.

 

[CarolT]

It’s vague about that. Also it vague about exactly what nicotine does to babies.

“Exposure to nicotine during pregnancy through maternal smoking or nicotine replacement therapy is associated with adverse birth outcomes as well as several cognitive and neurobehavioral deficits.”

It seems to me to be saying that babies of mothers who use nicotine during pregnancy are born addicted to nicotine and this is shown by gene expression in the baby’s DNA, which might turn out to be useful in addiction cessation research. It also attempts to describe things using the term “building block of health” though which I personally find to be suspiciously unscientific language.

The article is apparently a recounting of another article which an abstract of a third article, and is ironically much shorter.
Comparison between dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic neurons in the VTA following chronic nicotine exposure during pregnancy
This article reports that the research in question was done on rats, that the association between mothers using nicotine replacement and impairment in babies is preassumed and not actually part of the study, and that the actual change in gene expression is merely speculated.

That's excellent detective work on your part, tracking down where it came from and what's actually there. And the bottom line is that they can't link it to any actual harm in humans or even rats. Those "adverse birth outcomes" are largely preterm birth, which is really the consequence of chorioamnionitis, which is more common among less wealthy people. They blame smoking by ignoring the role of this infection.
Chorioamnionitis Causes Perinatal Illnesses Blamed on Smoking

 

[bombastinator]

That's excellent detective work on your part, tracking down where it came from what's actually there. And the bottom line is that they can't actually link it to any actual harm in humans or even rats. Those "adverse birth outcomes" are largely preterm birth, which is really the consequence of chorioamnionitis, which is more common among less wealthy people. They blame smoking by ignoring the role of this infection.
Chorioamnionitis Causes Perinatal Illnesses Blamed on Smoking

The only person I knew who claimed to be underweight as a result of her mother smoking had a mother who was, to put it mildly, stupidly wealthy. This doesn’t denigrate your point though. I’d have to see normalized research to confirm it but it’s very plausible.

 

[CarolT]

The only person I knew who claimed to be underweight as a result of her mother smoking had a mother who was, to put it mildly, stupidly wealthy. This doesn’t denigrate your point though. I’d have to see normalized research to confirm it but it’s very plausible.

That was a gold-standard study because of all the pathology work. And its size is probably unsurpassed. Studies like that are expensive, and they don't do them every day. So demanding more than that is like wishing for a cold day in hell. The bottom line is that anti-smoker studies are quick and sloppy in comparison.

 

[bombastinator]

That was a gold-standard study because of all the pathology work. And its size is probably unsurpassed. Studies like that are expensive, and they don't do them every day. So demanding more than that is like wishing for a cold day in hell. The bottom line is that anti-smoker studies are quick and sloppy in comparison.

As I said, it doesn’t denigrate your point. The quality claim about the study implies that normalization has probably been done.

I agree that the anti-smoking studies are generally sloppy on-the-cheap garbage though. They’re just there to generate negative press and FUD. They don’t have to actually. BE science, they just have to look like it enough for a distracted science writer to fall for it. Plus they’re easier to mess with that way

 

[CarolT]

There's another big slab of quackery, falsely pretending that dopamine causes pleasure, and then insinuating that it causes addiction.
That whole "dopamine equals pleasure" lie has been discredited. "As Salamone’s studies have showed, animals with lowered levels of dopamine almost always choose the easy, low-value reward, while animals with normal levels don’t mind exerting the effort to jump the fence for the high-value reward... 'Low levels of dopamine make people and other animals less likely to work for things, so it has more to do with motivation and cost/benefit analyses than pleasure itself,' he explains."
UConn Researcher: Dopamine Not About Pleasure (Anymore) - UConn Today
Also, dopamine levels rise before any rewards have been gained.

 

[bombastinator]

There's another big slab of quackery, falsely pretending that dopamine causes pleasure, and then insinuating that it causes addiction.
That whole "dopamine equals pleasure" lie has been discredited. "As Salamone’s studies have showed, animals with lowered levels of dopamine almost always choose the easy, low-value reward, while animals with normal levels don’t mind exerting the effort to jump the fence for the high-value reward... 'Low levels of dopamine make people and other animals less likely to work for things, so it has more to do with motivation and cost/benefit analyses than pleasure itself,' he explains."
UConn Researcher: Dopamine Not About Pleasure (Anymore) - UConn Today
Also, dopamine levels rise before any rewards have been gained.

The brain is a horribly complicated thing.

 

[marianna]

Nicotine is just as addictive as caffeine... so what?
Life is addictive for most people.
Smoking is bad, because of all other burned ingredients.
And dry hits by vaping are also bad.
So we keep on vaping and prevent dry hits as much as possible.