Rodu Reports Meta-Analysis Proves Nicotine Produces Positive Effects

[StormFinch]

Excerpts from today's 'tobacco Truth' blog by Brad Rodu, Professor of Medicine at the University of Louisville. It turns out we were right all along.

A meta-analysis just published in the journal Psychopharmacology reviewed the effects of nicotine and smoking on aspects of human performance (abstract here). The lead author is Stephen Heishman, a scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse; he is joined by Bethea Kleykamp of Johns Hopkins University and Edward Singleton of Stevenson University. The study will not please anti-tobacco extremists.

Heishman et al. found that nicotine and/or smoking produces positive effects involving fine motor skills, attention and memory. The investigators conclude: “The significant effects of nicotine on motor abilities, attention, and memory likely represent true performance enhancement because they are not confounded by withdrawal relief. The beneficial cognitive effects of nicotine have implications for initiation of smoking and maintenance of tobacco dependence.”

See the whole story here: Tobacco Truth: The Proven Positive Effects of Nicotine and Tobacco

EDIT BY SJ: here's the full text of the study View attachment Meta-analysis of the acute effects of nicotine and smoking on human performance.pdf

 

[Dkrom68]

Nice find Loree. If now they would only listen to all the facts from all the vapers out there and get things going in our favor instead of baseless facts.

 

[StormFinch]

Thanks Dk, I figure it's just one more good sized rock for our slings.

I especially like where Professor Rodu mentioned that the study wouldn't please anti-tobacco extremists. I imagine there will a great howling and gnashing of teeth when and if this becomes more widely distributed.

 

[TropicalBob]

It won't become more widely distributed. It will be dismissed without comment.

Brad Rodu is such a good man, and a true friend of harm reduction. But to those in the power positions of health organizations and Congress, he is anathema. To many, he's a joke, funded by Big Tobacco, they say.

I greatly admire Brad Rodu, but my admiration, or yours, won't get him credentialed status among the anti-tobacco crowd now holding power in the U.S.

 

[Dkrom68]

Maybe not Bob but we can try to help him get heard atleast its all we can do to fight the cause and it dont seem as if their listening to us either so we can only try

 

[StormFinch]

TropicalBob did you notice that Rodu was only reporting on the study, not involved? The authors were Stephen Heishman, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethea Kleykamp, Johns Hopkins University and Edward Singleton of Stevenson University. It was published in the Psychopharmacology journal and is available on PubMed. I would think that these institutions at the very least would add some credibility in any eyes that aren't being squinted shut... with their fingers in their ears, and yelling nah nah nah!

 

[D103]

TropicalBob did you notice that Rodu was only reporting on the study, not involved? The authors were Stephen Heishman, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethea Kleykamp, Johns Hopkins University and Edward Singleton of Stevenson University. It was published in the Psychopharmacology journal and is available on PubMed. I would think that these institutions at the very least would add some credibility in any eyes that aren't being squinted shut... with their fingers in their ears, and yelling nah nah nah!

I totally agree StormFinch - Thanks for the Excellent link! It's incredible if you take the time and follow all the associated links with that article and read all the indepth testing that is currently going on re: the positive and highly potential therapeutic effects of nicotine on cognition, memory, learning, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and Attention Deficit Disorder. Regardless of our immediate perils re: the antis' wanting to ban e-cigs, the focus on nicotine as a positive chemical when 'not associated' with combustible cigarettes and the 4,000 plus harmful components, appears to be moving ahead at quite a clip, and while this may not help us directly in the short-term, as Tropial Bob suggests(although I believe it will) it will certainly help us in the bigger picture. It is becoming increasingly clearer to me that this technology is NOT going to go away!

 

[Oliver]

I've uploaded the full text of the study for anyone interested: View attachment Meta-analysis of the acute effects of nicotine and smoking on human performance.pdf

 

[madglee]

You know, I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner specializing in all forms of dementia. I just returned from a symposium where they went over some research speaking to the neuroprotective effects of nicotine - in low doses - in preventing Alzheimer's. They're beginning to believe AZ is a neurodevelopmental disease, rather than a neurodegenerative disease. That is, it starts very, very early on within the neurons, and by the time the amyloid plaques are apparent, even wiping them away doesn't help.

Most of the front line drugs we treat dementia with affect acetylcholine, like Aricept, Exelon, etc.

Check out this article. It's a bit scientific-y but it's still interesting and it sounds like a lot of you know tons about this.

http://neuro.bcm.edu/_web/danilab/files/annurev_pharmtox_47_120505.pdf

 

[ezmoose]

I haven't vaped for a while; now where the heck did I put my ENI? lol

 

[madglee]

Excerpts from today's 'Tobacco Truth' blog by Brad Rodu, Professor of Medicine at the University of Louisville. It turns out we were right all along.


See the whole story here: Tobacco Truth: The Proven Positive Effects of Nicotine and Tobacco

EDIT BY SJ: here's the full text of the study View attachment 9118

We need to be wary that we understand the conclusions of this research, though. Unless I'm misunderstanding, the meta-analyses is concluding that acute nicotine intake is basically beneficial in several areas. However, chronic "smoking" is definitely not.

I'd like to see some longitudinal studies using just vaping or nicotine inhalers. They say at the end of that study, under methodological considerations:

These data and those reported
here highlight the distinction between the positive and
potentially therapeutic effects of acute nicotine and the
deleterious effects of chronic smoking on cognition.

So, in other words, in an acute sense, the nicotine is beneficial, but chronic smoking leads to:
Reviews of the association between smoking and cognitive
decline in the elderly conclude that smokers, compared with
never smokers, are at significantly greater risk for
Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and yearly cognitive
decline (Anstey et al. 2007; Peters et al. 2008);
oxidative stress, inflammation, and atherosclerosis are
likely mechanisms

I'm going to go ahead and extrapolate that most of that inflammation and oxidative stress, as well as atherosclerosis, is due to the poisons in tobacco and the CO2. Without that confounding variable, chronic nicotine use will be found to be just as beneficial.

 

[StormFinch]

I've uploaded the full text of the study for anyone interested: View attachment 9119

Thanks bunches SmokeyJoe.

 

[telsie]

This certainly explains why, as a smoker, I would always reach for a cigarette to help me problem-solve. It didn't matter if I'd just had one, if I had to figure something out I'd grab another. Now I reach for my ecig instead, but vapor doesn't seem to work as well for thinking as smoke did (not for me anyway).

 

[TropicalBob]

It's just not the same for me either, Telsie. That's why so many of us in this section of ECF are pondering what is missing. Something is missing.

 

[logbas34]

lol thats good he said that but i knew bout that whole memory thing for a long time ( i used to light up an analog outside the school before i'd take my exams, now i vape walkin in the building and hear "sir you can't smoke in here, oh wait, thats not a cigarette what is that" (; I knew it could help me think better and i always did do better on tests

 

[me who]

I would think that these institutions at the very least would add some credibility in any eyes that aren't being squinted shut... with their fingers in their ears, and yelling nah nah nah!

You know what's really ironic, I've worked at JHUBV, I've stealth vaped on location to get myself mentally in the zone to trouble shoot some of their complex automation systems.
Meanwhile, little did I know what they were up to, or they know what I was up to.

 

[Vocalek]

You know, I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner specializing in all forms of dementia. I just returned from a symposium where they went over some research speaking to the neuroprotective effects of nicotine - in low doses - in preventing Alzheimer's. They're beginning to believe AZ is a neurodevelopmental disease, rather than a neurodegenerative disease. That is, it starts very, very early on within the neurons, and by the time the amyloid plaques are apparent, even wiping them away doesn't help.

Most of the front line drugs we treat dementia with affect acetylcholine, like Aricept, Exelon, etc.

Check out this article. It's a bit scientific-y but it's still interesting and it sounds like a lot of you know tons about this.

http://neuro.bcm.edu/_web/danilab/files/annurev_pharmtox_47_120505.pdf

Did they happen to mention LBD? My mother has been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. I recall reading somewhere, but I can't find the reference now, that nicotine prevents the build-up of Lewy Bodies in the brain. Looks like it prevents plaques, too.

No wonder I get so spacy when I try to go nicotine abstinent.

I took a look at your linked article and wondered whether the folks a Targacept participated at all in the writing. See their product pipeline. http://www.targacept.com/wt/page/pipeline

 

[Gas]

Nicotine can have positive effects like improving attention.... but the fact is that your attention is disturbed by nicotine lack when it gets metabolised. The craving to get it will distract you so... don't know how much is a benefit towards attention, in this case the issue has two faces

 

[madglee]

Nicotine can have positive effects like improving attention.... but the fact is that your attention is disturbed by nicotine lack when it gets metabolised. The craving to get it will distract you so... don't know how much is a benefit towards attention, in this case the issue has two faces

Gas, that's been true in the past, that all the studies only tested people in withdrawal, but what was interesting about the study we're talking about is that in comparing the control group with the nicotine group, never was the nicotine group going through withdrawal. They therefore removed that confounding variable. This study was straight up nicotine naive people versus nicotine dependent people.

 

[madglee]

Did they happen to mention LBD? My mother has been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. I recall reading somewhere, but I can't find the reference now, that nicotine prevents the build-up of Lewy Bodies in the brain. Looks like it prevents plaques, too.

No wonder I get so spacy when I try to go nicotine abstinent.

I took a look at your linked article and wondered whether the folks a Targacept participated at all in the writing. See their product pipeline. Targacept: Biopharmaceutical Company - Product Pipeline

You know, they did not specifically mention LBD but currently the treatment is the same - acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and NMDA antagonists. I've seen some great outcomes with Namenda. That link you put up is cool, I've never seen that or even heard of it. Will have to look into it more.