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Nicotine May Help Brain Disease
By Daniel Q. Haney
AP Medical Editor
Monday, Feb. 21, 2000; 2:23 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON –– Despite its evil image, new research suggests that nicotine is a surprisingly potent drug for a variety of diseases that afflict the brain, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Tourette's syndrome.
Many small studies over the past decade have explored the possible benefits of this ubiquitous drug. But the field appears to be taking on fresh life as doctors test nicotine patches for neurological diseases in both children and the elderly, and drug companies race to concoct nicotine substitutes that carry fewer side effects.
At a conference Monday, doctors said the field's first gold-standard study – one in which dummy treatments are rigorously compared with the real thing – suggests the patch shows real promise in children with Tourette's syndrome, a strange affliction in which victims are beset by spates of tics, shouted obscenities and violent urges.
Still, nicotine has many drawbacks, including its unsavory reputation as the addictive grabber in cigarettes. Some experts believe nicotine's real future is in fake forms of the drug.
"The problem with nicotine is that it is nicotine. You're asking parents to put their kids on nicotine," said Dr. Paul R. Sanberg of the University of South Florida, who has tested the drug on more than 100 young Tourette's patients.
Typically, doctors treat Tourette's with Haldol, a powerful tranquilizer that is also used against schizophrenia. In the latest study, Sanberg and colleagues combined nicotine patches and Haldol in 70 children, half of whom got dummy patches.
The study found those on nicotine did better and were able to control their symptoms with lower than usual doses of Haldol. "The data suggest that a low-dose nicotine patch may be useful in Tourette's syndrome," said Sanberg.
He and others experimenting with nicotine described their research at a conference in Washington sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Nicotine patches and gum are available in drugstores without prescriptions. They are intended to help smokers wean themselves off cigarettes.
The researchers cautioned that smoking is a bad way to get medical nicotine. Besides the obvious cancer risk, drug levels spike much higher in cigarettes.
They also say more research is needed before nicotine patches become routine to treat diseases. However, Sanberg said that if Tourette's patients cannot control their symptoms with standard drugs, a low-dose patch might be worth trying.
Nicotine has been tested for many years in small-scale experiments against Alzheimer's disease and more recently against Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's causes tremors, rigid limbs and a shuffling walk, and like Alzheimer's, it may also result in problems with memory and thinking.
Dr. Paul Newhouse of the University of Vermont tried nicotine patches on 15 Parkinson's patients. Although there was no comparison group, his pilot study suggested that nicotine substantially improved their movement and relieved their mental difficulties.
Newhouse also tested a synthetic form of nicotine, Abbott Laboratories' ABT-418, on six Alzheimer's patients. Despite its small size, Newhouse said patients showed "a significant improvement in verbal learning and memory" on standardized tests.
Since no drug firms have exclusive rights to nicotine, researchers say companies have little interest in paying for studies to prove its health benefits. However, several are working on nicotine substitutes that can be patented. These drugs could be more precisely targeted against specific disorders, carry fewer side effects and be available as pills rather than patches.
Nicotine is thought to work by regulating the brain's levels of message-carrying chemicals, such as dopamine and acetylcholine. Researchers say they see no sign that patients get hooked on the patch. The main side effects are nausea and itching around the patch.
Another drawback of the patch is the possibility it might trigger heart attacks, as the much higher nicotine in cigarettes can. Sanberg said that in his studies, children's heart rates rise about 10 percent, but they show no other obvious heart effects.
© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
Nicotine May Help Brain Disease
As usual the AP editors skew the headline of the news they don't wish to hear. Given the constant negative publicity smoking gets, this headline would likely be taken to mean that nicotine helps brain diseases progress rather than help against the disease.
We knew this all along. Now that we have quit smoking we have gotten fat and can't hold a conversation anymore, and something else, but I can't remember.
Laser, I have been asking all along if the war on cigarettes was so the stuff could be medicalized. Now you need to see a doctor, get a prescription, and then get it filled. But, not to worry, the doctors will be able to tell US who they want to think a little better. Just moving the money into greedy DOCTOR's hands. Peace and love, George.
WooHoo!!! Lucky at last!!!
My Mother has past on, but when she was here...she always said as long as she smokes she will never become an Alzheimer patient. One side of her family, would start having alot of mental difficulties...in those days they called it 'Your Gray Matter', today we call it Alzheimer...so there have been studies out in the past that proved brain diseases and nicotine help. How else would she have known that unless she had not heard of other studies.
Copenhagen: It satisfies. Since 1822. Happiness is a roll [ten cans] of fresh Cope, wrapped in tinfoil in the freezer. I'm not addicted to Cope. I just like the taste. Damn is it good.
I predicted it! Now that the Government has their hand in the cigarette companies pockets nicotine shall start to become the healthiest thing since G*d almighty!
Just wait as the data starts coming in. It will cure corns, dandruff, fallen arches, kidney disease, diabetes, prostate problems and last but not least IMPOTENCE. The cure of the latter problem in our sick society will boost sales 100000% and tax revenues will roll in. Then add marijuana and the politicos can support their buddies.
Wait and see.
So what are we to do? I quit smoking five years ago and gained 40 pounds. My memory is increasingly pathetic! I don't dare go back to smoking....highway robbery, but hell, it sounds like I could use the patch! LOL....
Do you all know how AMAZING this is? Tourettes syndrome symptoms have fanished completely, with the first nicotine patch, in some of the patients who used to have uncontollable, god-awful, humiliating, symptoms of this horrific disease. Saying they can become hooked on Nicotine is like saying a person dying a painful death will become "hooked" on the medication used to relieve the pain...to which I say "so what!"
spectre's wife
So what are we to do? I quit smoking five years ago and gained 40 pounds. My memory is increasingly pathetic! I don't dare go back to smoking....highway robbery, but hell, it sounds like I could use the patch! LOL....
This won't help you much, but the main reason that people who quit smoking gain weight, even when they don't increase their caloric intake, is because smoking elevates the heart rate which burns more calories. Anyone who quits smoking must immediately eat less or exercise more or they will gain weight.
Still, nicotine has many drawbacks, including its unsavory reputation as the addictive grabber in cigarettes. Some experts believe nicotine's real future is in fake forms of the drug.
Nicotine is, at worse, a benign drug, and at best, beneficial. It is the carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke that causes heart disease, and the tar in cigarettes that causes lung cancer. Nicotine causes neither.
Nicotine is, at worse, a benign drug, and at best, beneficial. It is the carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke that causes heart disease, and the tar in cigarettes that causes lung cancer. Nicotine causes neither.
What is annoying is that neither tar, nor carbon monoxide nor smoke are inherently necessary components of nicotine use. Only the government's medling into the matter keeps them tied together. It is technologically perfectly feasable to produce inhalers which deliver pure nicotine vapors in the same quantities that cigarettes deliver. Without second hand smoke (and all the stigma and laws that came with it) and without harm to the smoker.
Unfortunately, due to government's meddling, you can now get very expensive inhalers only via prescription (medical mafia wants its cut of action) and they deliver less than one tenth of nicotine of a cigarette and only if you inhale very hard for 15 or more minutes. They also have to add chemical irritants to it, which are neither pleasant nor healthy to inhale and in few years they may find these irritants cause some weird side-effect.
If the busy-bodies and health nazis were to get out of the picture, smoking would be as benign as coffe drinking. Unfortunately the "protective" bureacracies are hopelessly addicted to the billions they extort from smokers on the pretext of protection and prevention, it won't be easy to shake them off (if smokers ever get it together and start fighting back as a unified block).
so there have been studies out in the past that proved brain diseases and nicotine help. How else would she have known that unless she had not heard of other studies.
I have read about it in late 1980s, in some British science journals, but didn't see anything about it in mass media.
Another area, besides the degenerative brain diseases where nicotine is helpful, are digestive system diseases (in particular colitis which is virtually absent in smokers). It is also helpful in countering the motoric side-effects of neuroleptics, which is why schizophrenics tend to be heavy smokers.
Unfortunately, scientists who wish to work in these areas find it very difficult to get the funding and even if they get funded, their work tends to be censored and otherwise rejected by the peer review. Tobacco companies do not wish to get involved since any positive health claim would bring them fully under the FDA nazis, so they don't support such reasarch for quite some time. And the government obviously likes it exactly the way it is, get the money and preach about the harm, but block any attempt of removing the harm (such as tar, CO and smoke free nicotine inhalers).
LOL - Great Post - Thanks
What is annoying is that neither tar, nor carbon monoxide nor smoke are inherently necessary components of nicotine use. Only the government's medling into the matter keeps them tied together. It is technologically perfectly feasable to produce inhalers which deliver pure nicotine vapors in the same quantities that cigarettes deliver. Without second hand smoke (and all the stigma and laws that came with it) and without harm to the smoker.
You are absolutely correct. In the early 1980s RJR came out with a smokeless cigarette which was quickly trounced by the government and the ADA as "nothing more than a nicotine delivery system", as if that were a bad thing. Unfortunately, since that phrase connotes evil to most Americans, it had no future as a product and was pulled from 'market test'. It has not resurfaced.
government and the ADA as "nothing more than a nicotine delivery system", as if that were a bad thing. Unfortunately, since that phrase connotes evil to most Americans
That's right. Picking the right words and the means to publicize them unopposed is the way these folks keep the "unwashed masses" messmerized.
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