Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug

[The Straight Story]

Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug
Marty Graham Email 06.20.07 | 2:00 AM

Smoking may be bad for you, but researchers and biotech companies are quietly developing pharmaceuticals that are decidedly good for brains, bowels, blood vessels and even immune systems -- and they're inspired by tobacco's deadly active ingredient: nicotine.

Nicotine acts on the acetylcholine receptors in the brain, stimulating and regulating the release of a slew of brain chemicals, including seratonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Not surprisingly, the first scientific work that identified these chemicals and how they affect the body came out of nicotine research -- much of it performed by tobacco companies.

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.

"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."

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/nicotine

[havocmom]

1. Anybody else thinking of the Woody Allen movie Sleeper?

Next up: lemon pie is a panacea.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Um, it's stigmatized because it's a highly addictive poison....

... Regardless of the method of delivery. It's a nightshade for fuck's sake.

[Liberal Veteran]

6. Nearly all medicines are poison at the wrong dosage.

There are any number of drugs on the market that are derived from their plant-based components.

A few off the top of my head:

Digitalis: Made from Foxglove...a common flower in gardens.

Atropine and Scopolamine: both ingredients derived from deadly nightshade and very useful medicines.

Morphine: Comes from poppies

Hell, we eat the fruit of nightshade plants all the time. Eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, hot and bell peppers are all part of the nightshade family too.

Don't be too quick to dismiss nicotine as having medicinal uses.

Niacin was first discovered as an oxidation product of nicotine (which is why niacin is also known as nicotinic acid).

[BlooInBloo]

7. Sigh.

[Liberal Veteran]

9. And why so great a sigh?

Was there something inaccurate in what I wrote?

I have no idea why people would be repulsed at the idea we might find some good uses for a drug that in it's common use (cigarettes) is so harmful.

[BlooInBloo]

10. Because illogic is a stable equilibrium.

[Liberal Veteran]

14. Whatever that means.

I will not dismiss out of hand that nicotine may have some very good medicinal uses.

That's not illogical. Opium is a highly addictive substance as well, but I sure don't have any issues with it's uses as a pain killer and an antispasmodic. The medicine of last resort for chronic diarrhea is tincture of opium.

[UnseenUndergrad]

15. Which makes me suspect...

That this is just a resurgent offensive from the tobacco lobby.

Tell me, are either the London or Plymouth Companies funding this research?

[BlooInBloo]

17. The stenography is *excellent* in the article tho!

[Stephanie]

18. Like eggplant?

Sorry, what do you mean?

[JeffR]

3. "tobacco's deadly active ingredient: nicotine"

One of the more ridiculous "journalistic" assertions in recent history, and that's saying something. What the hell is being taught in journalism schools these days? Or any school, for that matter...

[Fovea]

16. in children the oral LD50 is 10mg.

that's like what? 4 cigarettes worth?

[LeighAnn]

4. WHAT????

So does this mean that Prozac, Zoloft, etc. were born of the tobacco industry? Dirty bastards, they'll get us hooked on one thing or another. I wonder to what extent the tobacco magnates are invested in the pharmaceutical industry?

Does Phillip Morris still own Kraft?

[Drum]

8. See also: "Soma"

And...26 years after writing Brave New World, Huxley revisited the topic...

"In 1958, Aldous Huxley wrote what might be called a sequel to his novel Brave New World, published in 1932, but it was a sequel that did not revisit the story or the characters, or re-enter the world of the novel. Instead, he revisited that world in a set of 12 essays. Taking a second look at specific aspects of the future Huxley imagined in Brave New World, Huxley meditated on how his fantasy seemed to be turning into reality, frighteningly and much more quickly than he had ever dreamed. That he had been so prophetic in 1931 about the dystopian future gave Huxley no comfort. He was a far more serious man in 1958 -- at the age of 64 -- and the world was a very different place, transformed by the catastrophe of World War II, the advent of nuclear weapons and the grip of the Cold War. Looking behind the Iron Curtain, where people were not free but dominated by totalitarian power, Huxley could only bow to the grim prophecy of his friend (and, briefly, his student at Eton) George Orwell in the novel 1984. In the free world, however, the situation seemed even more to be one for despair. For it seemed to Huxley that people were well on their way to giving up their freedom and the sanctity of their individualism, in exchange for the illusions of comfort and sensory pleasure -- just as they had in Brave New World. Huxley heard, in 1958, a world full of the noise of what he called singing commercials, flooding the mass media, much like the hypnopaedia that shaped conscious thought in the world of the novel. He saw people everywhere in greater numbers taking tranquilizer drugs, to surrender to the unacceptable aspects of modern life -- not unlike the drug called soma that everyone takes in the novel. The power of propaganda, he believed, had been validated by the rise of Hitler, and the postwar world was using it effectively to manipulate the masses. Overpopulation was already a critical issue in 1958, and Huxley saw the emergence of an overpopulated world in which the chaos was, more and more, being countered by centralized control -- closer, it seemed, to the future of Brave New World, where the ultimate controlling capitalist of Huxley's early years, Henry Ford, had become the equivalent of God. In the end, Brave New World Revisited despairs of what has come to pass, primarily modern humankind's willingness to surrender freedom for pleasure. Huxley quotes from the episode of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov -- 'For nothing,' the Inquisitor insists, 'has ever been more insupportable for a man or a human society than freedom.' Huxley worried that the cry of "Give me liberty or give me death" could easily be replaced by "Give me television and hamburgers, but don't bother me with the responsibilities of liberty." He saw hope in the form of education, even the most pious, orthodox and inefficient kind of education -- education that can teach people to see beyond the easy slogans, efficient ends and anesthetic influences of propaganda. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for every long, Huxley concluded. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them."

http://ebooks.metronet.lib.mi.us/00000021-0000-0000-0000-000000000001/10/107/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=%7B18C73230-4E81-46E8-99A4-6F80F8013D6B%7D
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Hmmmm...

[LeighAnn]

12. Wow...

Thanks... Soma, huh? Funny! (sad)

[Marrah_G]

5. Well, here are my thoughts

The nicotine itself may well be a good drug, but they add tons of chemicals to the mix, harmful chemicals. Has there been any studies on the Patch or other smoking aids and disease?

[SeattleGirl]

11. Good point, Marrah.

I've not heard of any studies about the Patch or other stop-smoking aids, in the context of whether they are dangerous for you.

I would think that unless the Patch or other products are loaded with the same types of chemicals they put in cigarettes to get and keep you hooked (and poison the body), they wouldn't be nearly as bad as actually smoking a cigarette.

I think I may look around and see if I can find something on this.

[Canuckistanian]

13. Anyone ever see that episode of House?

Some guy had bowel problems and House prescribed smoking a few cigarettes a day as treatment.

[KT2000]

22. Yes I did

and I happen to know from first hand experience that it is true!

[Phrogman]

19. Just think of what researchers could learn about Marijuana

if they were allowed to do research on it that is.

[JDPriestly]

20. Interesting.

Many medicinal plants can be deadly if used improperly. It would not surprise me if deadly nicotine proved to have medicinal properties when used properly.

[glowing]

21. I've heard of the wound thing... back in the day, you were supposed

to wrap a wound with a tobacco leaf.