Last time your friend stopped you from smoking citing that smoking is injurious to your helath because of the presence of nicotine. That’s true. But the researchers have something else to say about nicotine.
Scientists and researchers are engaged in research and are developing some wonder drugs inspired by nicotine. These drugs will be beneficial for different body parts like brains, bowel, immune system and blood vessels. They will help in healing wounds, depression, ADHD, Tourette Syndrome, Alzheimer’s and anxiety. Next time you will be able to help your boss in managing his anger with these drugs. Clinical trials are going on, for finding the effectiveness of nicotine derived drugs on these problems.
“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.”
Our brain has several brain chemicals which manage our moods, effect our emotions, decide our response to a particular stimuli. These brain chemicals like seratonin, dopamine, norepinephrine etc are controlled by acetylcholine receptors in the brain, which are effected by nicotine. So when you smoke, you feel a good feeling spreading over you.
Nicotine studies have been done from a long time. With the availability of nicotine skin patches in 1990s, it took a fast lane. From that time till now, many researchers, biotech companies and pharmaceuticals companies are trying to find out the benefits of nicotine and are trying to develop a drug from it.
Targacept is performing phase II clinical trials on a drug which may help Alzheimer and Schizophrenia patients. It is also in another Phase I trial on a compound that may help in treatment of pain. CoMentis is in phase II clinical research on a compound that will help the wound heal in diabetic patients. It is also studying the effect of nicotine on immune system. All these studies are going on the good effects of nicotine.
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Source:Wired