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[Buddhahead]

Is nicotine all bad? in Reuters Health, KATE KELLAND, Tue May 19, 2015

MY COMMENTS: So why not Anatabine for smoking cessation safer?

Excerpts:
"Some studies show nicotine, like caffeine, can even have positive effects. It's a stimulant, which raises the heart rate and increases the speed of sensory information processing, easing tension and sharpening the mind.

All this raises other questions: Could nicotine prime the brains of young people to seek harder stuff? Or, in an aging society, could its stimulant properties benefit people whose brains are slowing, warding off cognitive decline into Alzheimer’s and delaying the progression of Parkinson’s disease?

So far the answers aren’t clear. And the divide is as political and emotional as it is scientific"

"McNeill says her work is, in part, to honor the legacy of her former mentor at King's, British psychiatrist Mike Russell. About 40 years ago, Russell was one of the first scientists to suggest that people "smoke for the nicotine, but die from the tar" – an idea that helped lay the ground for the NRT business of gums, patches, vaporizers and now e-cigarettes."

"Smoking kills half of all those who do it - plus 600,000 people a year who don't, via second-hand smoke - making it the world's biggest preventable killer, with a predicted death toll of a billion by the end of the century, according to the World Health Organization."

"One reason smoking is so addictive is that it's a highly efficient nicotine delivery system, McNeill says. “Smoking a tobacco cigarette is one of the best ways of getting nicotine to the brain - it's faster even than intravenous injection." Also, tobacco companies used various chemicals to make the nicotine in cigarettes even more potent."

"Elsewhere, studies have looked at nicotine's potential to prevent Alzheimer's disease, and to delay the onset of Parkinson's.

A study in the journal Brain and Cognition in 2000 found that “nicotinic stimulation may have promise for improving both cognitive and motor aspects of Parkinson's disease.” Another, in Behavioral Brain Research, suggested “there is considerable potential for therapeutic applications in the near future.” Other work has looked at the stimulant's potential for easing symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)."

"Even so, the idea of "safe nicotine" has not caught on.

Marcus Munafo, a biological psychologist at Britain's Bristol University, says public health campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s bound nicotine, addiction and cigarettes tightly together to hammer home smoking's harms. Those associations may blur the potential for cleaner nicotine to lure smokers away from cigarettes."

Article at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/19/us-health-nicotine-insight-idUSKBN0O412Q20150519?feedType=nl&feedName=healthNews