Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug

[MonkeyMonk]

Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug

This is a very interesting read from June 2007

Just a little chunk of text from the article:

..."Nicotine is highly stigmatized -- and for good reason, because the delivery system is so deadly," says Don deBethizy, CEO of Targacept. "But the drug itself and the research generated by studying its effects on the brain both show great promise for helping us improve our physical and mental health." ...

...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. ..
.

 

[MonkeyMonk]

Another Interesting Read from ScienceDaily (Apr. 4, 2009)
Nicotine May Have More Profound Impact Than Previously Thought

Just a taste of what's in the article:
..."Researchers have found that the alpha-7 receptor, a site known to bind with nicotine, interacts with 55 different proteins. Nicotine may affect bodily processes -- and perhaps the actions of other commonly used drugs -- more broadly than was previously thought. (Credit: Hawrot Lab/Brown University)"...

 

[MonkeyMonk]

And, a 3rd interesting article from Science A Go Go Nov 2003
Nicotine Improves Memory And Helps Brain Repair Itself
"
The remarkable protective effects of nicotine — the addictive chemical in tobacco — on the brain are continuing to surprise scientists. One recent study has found that one of nicotine's metabolites, cotinine, may improve memory and protect brain cells from diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Another new study shows that nicotine can help improve some of the learning and memory problems associated with hypothyroidism. Such studies suggest that nicotine — or drugs that mimic nicotine — may one day prove beneficial in the treatment of neurological disorders."...

...""We believe that nicotine exposure during development— the same kind of exposure that occurs in mothers who smoke during pregnancy — disrupts normal nicotine receptor activity, much like the knockout mutation, and that this leads to altered emotional learning in adulthood," says King."...


..."Researchers in the laboratories of Karim Alkadhi, PhD, at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy recently studied the effect of nicotine on stress-induced memory impairment in rats. They found that when stressed animals were given nicotine, they performed significantly better at short-term memory tests than stressed animals not given the chemical. In fact, the nicotine-treated stressed animals performed the same as unstressed (control) animals."...

 

[jamie]

Good info, please add if you find more!

Hope the thread can be moved to the NICOTINE section of the forum.

 

[ZambucaLu]

Moved to Nicotine.

Lu

 

[MonkeyMonk]

jamie, yes, I'm glad that Lu moved it. After I posted it in the wrong section, I, too, clicked the triangle to request a moderator move it to the correct section. I was super tired yesterday...

Thanks, Lu!

 

[Duckies]

This research may give hints about why brain-rewiring drugs like Chantix and Wellbutrin can work beautifully for some and make others positively psychotic.

Thanks for posting the links!

 

[ED7]

Great info....thank you very much

 

[OaklandVapors]

My roomie showed me this link, trying to show me that my ecig isn't as harmless as thought:

Nicotine and Cancer

Abstract:
Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for various types of cancer. Nicotine, a major alkaloid in tobacco, is responsible for different aspects in the pathogenesis of smoking-related malignancies. Nicotine only not perpetuates smoking behavior in smokers, which results in further intake of tobacco-derived carcinogens, but also directly increases cellular mutagenic events. Current evidence also supports that nicotine can be metabolized into highly carcinogenic nitrosamines. In addition, nicotine by itself stimulates cancer cell proliferation through multiple mitogenic signaling pathways. Nicotinic stimulation also provides pro-survival signals to cancer cells such that they are more resistant to apoptosis induced by chemotherapeutic agents or ionizing radiation. Moreover, there is evolving evidence suggesting that nicotine can stimulate tumor-associated angiogenesis, a biological process essential for tumor growth and metastasis. It has also been reported that nicotine enhances cancer cell invasiveness and weakens host cancer-killing immunity. Taken together, nicotine seems to play an important role in the initiation, promotion, and progression of smoking-related cancers. A controlled surveillance study on cancer risk of current nicotine users especially those on nicotine replacement therapy is therefore justified.

I can't figure out if they are referring to it by it's self, or in a regular tobacco cigarette...

 

[katink]

I've placed this piece of 'evidence' into the scare-mongery bin for myself, Oakland (to each his/her own as far as this goes of course!).

Not one single study shows nicotine to cause cancer. Yes, it can make the growing of ALLREADY EXISTING cancer easier. By making the circumstances, the environment in which cancer tries to grow a bit more favourable to the cancer. But saying 'and so nicotine causes cancer' is just scaremongering.
It's about the same as taking the following shortcut: taking a cola each day means intake of sugar. Sugar makes fat. Fat people are more susceptible to heart-attacks.
So: COLA CAUSES HEART-ATTACKS... OH MY... (not!)

It's good to know which factors can attribute to being unhealthy, in whichever way, certainly. But declaring something into a straight-line culprit while it is not, is just misleading, at least in my book.

So just another of the tools the fundamentalists are using to now try to demonize nicotine, for me...

Good finds Monkeymonk, interesting.
I can't help but feel a certain fear though, with all this interest in nicotine - namely that some or other company or institute will try to get to 'own' anything nicotine-like - and will then cut off the possibilities for people to self-medicate, like is happening wide and far with nicotine. BP is bound to look at this all-salivating and trying to find entries to force all those self-medicators to use very expensive (and their, of course...) pills instead.
Guess this is allready happening, with all the anti's that were chasing tobacco now starting to chase nicotine also... and I'm wondering how far this might be steered by BP for this exact reason (being pretty paranoid here, I know... but some parts of society just seem to cause that to surface, wonder why... better go grab some nicotine now )

 

[MonkeyMonk]

katinik, thanks!

Recently, I had made a lot of progress switching from analogs to vaping. I was overly cautious so the nicotine dosage was kept pretty low, sometimes at 0 nic. End result for me was that I needed to go back on my antianxiety/antidepressant medicine inorder to function efficiently with paperwork and housework and caregiving. Thus, I agree with a lot of what I read in those articles about the benefits of nicotine in "brain functioning" and I, too, fear BP will go for patents like they did with naturally occurring vitamin B6.....BP needs a good kick in the pants because they are the snake around the cross in the medical profession.

 

[TropicalBob]

Not paranoid at all, Katink. BP would be thrilled to see all nicotine regulated and delivery systems controlled. It isn't Big Tobacco that makes nicotine; it's Big Pharma. They stand to be the big winners if e-smoking is dashed to oblivion. And they alone have the money to fund the studies (which often conclude what a funding body supports).

I do, however, have worries about nicotine's relationship to cancer. It it fertilizes cancerous cells, some of us might have a problem. I smoked for 50 years. How do I know there is not one rebellious, mutant, cancerous cell in my lungs, waiting only to be fertilized into reproduction? Without nicotine, it might stay dormant and impotent. With nicotine ... that's what scares me.

Most of us are probably former cigarette smokers. Did we sow the cancer field and now await only a flush of growth that nicotine might provide?

 

[katink]

True Bob; it's a worry, a risk. Part of the price we pay by remaining addicted. But it isn't a cause... and also, by stopping nicotine-intake you don't get a guarantee for any current starting cancer to not grow either (in fact: didn't we discuss a while back that precisely getting off nicotine gives extra danger for a number of years? Brain isn't quite clear on what we learned then... but that fact does emerge still...)

 

[TropicalBob]

That was a thread, yes. I don't remember the exact figures, but they supported the common belief that cancer INCREASES in the five years after a smoker quits. In those five years, ex-smokers get more new cancers than continuing smokers. No studies singled out nicotine.

I told my wife today while we were riding in a car that no matter how I die, short of trauma, I'll be listed as a "smoking-related disease death." I was a smoker. I am no longer. Makes no difference. How can I ever know what damage lies undetected inside me, ready to explode an organ when some undetectable time bomb hits the zero hour? I can't, but no matter when or where it happens, I'll be marked on the hospital chart as being a cigarette casualty. I'm sure of it.

 

[katink]

You can always end like this (like those uncles of yours, I think?): 95, you ask the nurse in that old-age home to take you to your bed for a nap, and you simply don't wake up anymore... no 'tobacco-related death' on your chart then.

 

[warp1900]

Call me crazy guys, but here is what i came across since i started vaping.
1- I have smoked for 32+ years about 1.5 packs of cigs.
2- I started on my vaping with medium nicotine liquids.
3- I dropped analogs on the very first day i started vaping.
4- After about 2 weeks i was curious to find out how much nicotine my body was used to, so i ordered 0 nicotine juice and i never went back to others since.
As far as i can conclude from my findings, i am addicted to the smoke effect, not to the nicotine, i dont ever crave for analogs or nicotine on my pen style.
Maybe its only me, but that is how it worked in my case..if it works for others, i might have come across one more of hundreds of SCAMS by our scientists/government by pure luck. If we dont really crave the nicotine, then they can't ever have an excuse to take the vaporizers from us .

 

[warp1900]

Call me crazy guys, but here is what i came across since i started vaping.
1- I have smoked for 32+ years about 1.5 packs of cigs.
2- I started on my vaping with medium nicotine liquids.
3- I dropped analogs on the very first day i started vaping.
4- After about 2 weeks i was curious to find out how much nicotine my body was used to, so i ordered 0 nicotine juice and i never went back to others since.
As far as i can conclude from my findings, i am addicted to the smoke effect, not to the nicotine, i dont ever crave for analogs or nicotine on my pen style.
Maybe its only me, but that is how it worked in my case..if it works for others, i might have come across one more of hundreds of SCAMS by our scientists/government by pure luck. If we dont really crave the nicotine, then they can't ever have an excuse to take the vaporizers from us .

SORRY
P.S. if i dont puff vapor as much as i used to puff on analogs, i do get massive cravings for analogs...any similar situations for anyone?

 

[gashin]

SORRY
P.S. if i dont puff vapor as much as i used to puff on analogs, i do get massive cravings for analogs...any similar situations for anyone?

When I first switched over from analogs, I used to vape way more than I smoked. When my atomizers died, I smoked a whole pack in the course of 8 hours - the first time I ever smoked an entire pack in one day

 

[gashin]

True, true - smokers are stigmatized by the medical community. However it is very ironic that many medical professionals smoke, particularly respiratory therapists and even some doctors!

That was a thread, yes. I don't remember the exact figures, but they supported the common belief that cancer INCREASES in the five years after a smoker quits. In those five years, ex-smokers get more new cancers than continuing smokers. No studies singled out nicotine.

I told my wife today while we were riding in a car that no matter how I die, short of trauma, I'll be listed as a "smoking-related disease death." I was a smoker. I am no longer. Makes no difference. How can I ever know what damage lies undetected inside me, ready to explode an organ when some undetectable time bomb hits the zero hour? I can't, but no matter when or where it happens, I'll be marked on the hospital chart as being a cigarette casualty. I'm sure of it.

 

[gashin]

It is well known that schizophrenics tend to smoke more to relive their symptoms - possibly a new treatment for mental illness?

Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug

This is a very interesting read from June 2007

Just a little chunk of text from the article:

..."Nicotine is highly stigmatized -- and for good reason, because the delivery system is so deadly," says Don deBethizy, CEO of Targacept. "But the drug itself and the research generated by studying its effects on the brain both show great promise for helping us improve our physical and mental health." ...

...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. ..
.