About the benefits of smoking
Smoking is 'good for your memory and concentration'David Derbyshire, Daily Mail, 14.08.2008
Translation: Inopressa
According to scientists, smoking can promote concentration and memory work. The discovery promises hope that nicotine pills, similar in effect to cigarettes, will become a cure for Alzheimer's disease.
Specialists are developing drugs that mimic the effects of active tobacco ingredients that stimulate brain activity, but do not cause cardiovascular diseases, cancer, strokes, as well as addiction.
These studies began after the ability of nicotine to increase intelligence and improve memory in animals was discovered in laboratory experiments.
A group of researchers presenting their latest findings today at a conference on brain activity hopes that the new drugs, which will go on sale in five years, will have fewer side effects than existing drugs for senile dementia.
However, they emphasize, the new principle of treatment will not be a panacea for Alzheimer's disease. At best, it will provide patients with several additional months of independent life. The fact that tobacco has a stimulating effect on the brain has been known for a long time. In the Victorian era, doctors prescribed smoking to sharpen intellectual abilities and facilitate concentration.
However, fatal side effects such as cancer, stroke and heart disease mean that medicine has neglected the negative aspects of tobacco.
Professor Ian Stoleman from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College (London) proved that nicotine can improve the results of rats when testing for intellectual level and memory.
"The substances that we call drugs, in most cases, really have a mixed – not only negative, but also positive effect. In this sense, nicotine is no exception," he said.
"When we started these studies 10 years ago, we did not think at all that we would encounter a positive impact on the thinking abilities of normal individuals."
"But we managed to find that there is an effect: the sharp introduction of nicotine into the body slightly improves the results of normal rats when performing experimental tasks."
A group of researchers led by Stoleman trained rats to respond to a brief flash of light by getting up to a certain place in the cage. If the rat moved to the right place, it was rewarded with food.
After completing the training course, the rats reacted correctly to the outbreak in about 80% of cases, and after nicotine injection, the effectiveness increased by another 5%.
When the rats were distracted by loud noise, the difference was much sharper. Without nicotine, they coped with the task in 50% of cases, and "on nicotine" – in 80%.
Professor Stolerman's group studied how nicotine acts on the transmission of signals in the brain, improving memory and the ability to concentrate, and also identified a number of key brain receptors and signal carrier chemicals involved in this process.
It also turned out that the sequence of events entailing an increase in intellectual abilities differs from the sequence of events leading to nicotine addiction.
"We believe that chemists-pharmacists, relying on these differences, may be able to develop complex drugs that reproduce a number of positive effects of nicotine," said the professor.
The findings will be presented today in a report at the European Neurology Forum in Geneva.
Pharmaceutical companies have been working for 10-15 years on nicotine-based drugs that would not have a negative impact. Thanks to new discoveries, perhaps in a few years there will be a new drug based on nicotine.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru15.07.2008