Blowing smoke?Nicotine nicotine, C10H14N2, poisonous, pale yellow, oily liquid alkaloid with a pungent odor and an acrid taste. It turns brown on exposure to air. may benefit Parkinson's patients, study says PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM A SMALL PILOT study suggest that the nicotine found in cigarettes may be beneficial to people in the early stages of Parkinson's Disease Parkinson's disease or Parkinsonism, degenerative brain disorder first described by the English surgeon James Parkinson in 1817. When there is no known cause, the disease usually appears after age 40 and is referred to as Parkinson's disease. . Paul Newhouse, MD, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, presented the evidence Feb. 21 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), private organization devoted to furthering the work of scientists and improving the effectiveness of science in the promotion of human welfare. in Washington, D.C. In the study, Newhouse and his colleagues tested 15 people with mild to moderate Parkinson's. The first phase of the study looked for any immediate, short-term effects on attention and arousal arousal /arous·al/ (ah-rou´z'l) 1. a state of responsiveness to sensory stimulation or excitability. 2. the act or state of waking from or as if from sleep. 3. by giving patients either intravenous doses of nicotine or a placebo over a 30-minute period. Nicotine appeared to improve patients' cognitive traits, including reaction time to stimulus during and just after the dosage time. In the second phase of the study, the patients wore a nicotine patch nicotine patch Nicotine transdermal delivery system Substance abuse A device used in smoking cessation Side effects Transient burning, itching–50%, erythema–14%; contact hypersensitivity–2.4%. See Nicotine replacement therapy. --available in drugstores without prescriptions to assist smokers in quitting--16 hours a day for two weeks. After that time, patients' standing, walking, sitting, finger dexterity, and hand movements showed improvement. Additional testing after patients stopped using the patches suggested that the improvement appeared to persist, but eventually performance appeared to worsen after two weeks after the therapy stopped. Newhouse said that larger, long-term trials must take place before he would recommend using nicotine to treat Parkinson's. He stressed that in no way is the pilot study an endorsement of cigarette smoking. Abraham Lieberman, MD, of the National Parkinson Foundation, confirmed that there are other studies that link nicotine with helping Parkinson's symptoms and that suggest that smokers are less likely to develop the disease. "But would I put my people on nicotine?" he said. "No. Especially since many Parkinson's patients are in their 60s and are likely to have comorbid diseases." Because nicotine speeds up heart rate, it would be unwise for persons with heart disease or diabetes to use it as a therapy, Lieberman said. "Would I give it to a 40-year-old?" he said. "Maybe." Cigarette smoking is directly responsible for 87 percent of lung cancer lung cancer, cancer that originates in the tissues of the lungs. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States in both men and women. Like other cancers, lung cancer occurs after repeated insults to the genetic material of the cell. cases and a major factor in coronary heart disease coronary heart disease: see coronary artery disease. coronary heart disease or ischemic heart disease Progressive reduction of blood supply to the heart muscle due to narrowing or blocking of a coronary artery (see atherosclerosis). and stroke. |
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