Health & Wellness
Thanks to Surgeon General's Warning labels, public smoking bans, strict regulation of advertising, excise taxes, and public service messages, nearly everyone in America is fully aware of the many health risks associated with cigarette smoking. Ongoing research has continuously proven that smoking causes lung dysfunction, cancer, SIDS, heart disease, birth defects, preterm birth, and other serious health problems. Knowing this, the idea that cigarette smoking may offer health benefits may seem utterly absurd.
However, cigarette smoking has been confirmed to provide numerous benefits to the health of smokers. Surprisingly, the tobacco plant appears to have more to offer our bodies than a guarantee of certain death. Although the health benefits of smoking are far outweighed by the many very dire risks, tobacco may provide alternative relief or prevention for some diseases in certain individuals.
The most fascinating and widely recognized health benefit of smoking is its ability to seemingly alleviate symptoms of mental illnesses, including anxiety and schizophrenia. According to an article published in 1995 in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, schizophrenics have much higher smoking rates than people with other mental illnesses, and appear to use it as a method of self-medicating. The article postulates that nicotine found in cigarettes reduces psychiatric, cognitive, sensory, and physical effects of schizophrenia, and also provides relief of common side effects from antipsychotic drugs.
The treatment of schizophrenia isn't the only positive effect that nicotine has on the brain. A series of very interesting studies from multiple academic sources confirms that the risk of Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease is surprisingly higher in non-smokers than in smokers. Doctor Laura Fratiglioni of Huddinge University Hospital in Sweden states, "Cigarette smokers are 50% less likely to have PD or AD than are age and gender-matched nonsmokers [...] cigarette smoking exerts an undefined, biologic, neuroprotective influence against the development of PD and AD."
The University of Melbourne confirmed the claims made by many smokers that tobacco itself is a strong appetite suppressant, and many use it to self-treat compulsive overeating disorders or obesity. Many smokers experience weight loss and decreased appetite after they begin smoking, and the Melbourne study found similar results in lab rats and mice exposed to cigarette smoke. While tobacco-influenced pharmaceuticals may at some point be an available option to treat obesity, smoking as a self-treatment is very ill-advised, since the negative effects of tobacco and obesity tend to compound and create interrelated conditions.
Cigarette smoking has also been linked to a decrease in risk of certain inflammatory disorders, since nicotine itself appears to be an anti-inflammatory agent. The department of gastroenterology at the University Hospital of Wales conducted a number of in-vitro studies to confirm and explain the decreased risk in ulcerative colitis (a potentially severe digestive disorder) in individuals who smoke cigarettes.
Perhaps most shockingly, tobacco smoke's anti-inflammatory effects may actually provide some benefits to children who are exposed to secondhand smoke. While this is certainly not worth at-home experimentation, one astonishing study conducted in Sweden observed two generations of Swedish children and found that the children of smokers had lower rates of allergic rhinitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema, and food allergies. The studied groups included 6909 adults and 4472 children, and the findings remained consistent, even when adjusted to reflect other variables.
Other surprising academic findings reveal that tobacco may have a positive effect on pregnancy, although this, too, should not be left up to individual experimentation. A study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology revealed that preeclampsia, an extremely common but potentially deadly condition, is significantly less common in expectant mothers who smoke cigarettes than in expectant mothers who do not smoke.
While it is undebated that tobacco cigarettes pose a number of deadly hazards to human health, they also reveal a surprising link to decreased mortality and morbidity for some conditions. While it may be interesting to note tobacco's few benefits, it is also critical for all consumers to recognize that its positive aspects are few compared to its many very serious risks. Even taking the health benefits of smoking into account, tobacco smokers can expect to live shorter lives and experience many chronic diseases.
If you believe you have, or are at risk for, a medical condition that can be treated or prevented with tobacco use, do not use this as a reason to begin smoking or to avoid smoking cessation. However, talk to your doctor about pharmaceutical or botanical solutions that may yield similar benefits, without the risks associated with tobacco. Emerging research may soon reveal an ability to synthesize and isolate the few positive chemicals in cigarettes and use them to manufacture new treatment options.
Sources:
Smoking and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease: Review of the Epidimiological Studies. Brain Behav. Res. 2000 Aug;113(1-2):117-20.
Nicotine Use in Schizophrenia: The Self-Medication Hypothesis. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. Volume 29, Issue 6. 2005; 1021-1034
Nitric Oxide Mediates Therapeutic Effect of Nicotine in Ulcerative Colitis. Ailment Pharmacol Ther. 2000 Nov;14(11):1429-34.
Urinary Cotinine Concentration Confirms the Reduced Risk of Preeclampsia with Tobacco Exposure. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1999;181:1192-6
Cigarette Smoking Can Dramatically Affect Appetite and Weight Control. News-Medical.net. Monday, 1-Nov-2004.
FDA: Anti-smoking drugs can make you crazy. Los Angeles Times. July 1, 2009.
Reader Comments
It's more likely that most of what is called "addiction" is psychological. Some people are addictive type personalities and most are not. This is why we have only a small percentage of people turning into alcoholics even though a larger percentage of the population drinks alcohol. This is also how video games and TV watching can be addictive even though there is no "addictive" chemical substance consumed. While there are addictive chemical substances, it doesn't pan out that nicotine is one of them. In regards to smoking, the propagandists have also managed to convince many people that what is simply a habit or a preference is an addiction when it really is not. It's a manipulative shaming technique.
The addiction claim about nicotine just doesn't hold water.
The usual criteria for determining addiction are:
(1) repeated and compulsive self-administration; (2) impaired control over use (e.g., repeated unsuccessful attempts to stop use or continued use despite known harmful consequences); (3) high motivation to seek the drug, because of cravings, regulation of affect (e.g., smoking to ease a depressed mood, for relaxation, or for stimulation), or other reasons associated with the psychoactive effects of the drug; (4) judgment of greater value from use of the drug over other reinforcers or activities; and (5) manifestation of physical dependence, as evidenced by withdrawal or tolerance.
All these are present in habitual smokers, but it's true that traditional cigarettes include a ton more chemicals (4000+). Even so, the organic cigs like Native Spirit also cause addiction, though the withdrawal is much milder.
In general, if one can't control their intake of a substance, that substance is considered addictive. However, not everyone becomes addicted, of course. I'm a living example of someone who has smoked off and on over my life and have never had any problems whatsoever NOT smoking for months and/or years at a time. It may depend on genetics.
(My background is in addiction counseling psychology and pharmacology.)
Addiction is rooted in the person, not the object.
[Link]
actually asked a physician about this. First of all most cigarettes have additives, most of them unhealthy (ammonia,tar,e.t.c.). Personally, I don't smoke. Nicotine acts in the following way in cigarette smoking : 16 cigarettes a day , namely 1/hour and provided that you get 8 hours of sleep/24 hours , act as a mild tranquilizer. If you exceed that analogy and most people I know DO exceed it, nicotine starts working in reverse namely as a booster. Check the number. The cigarettes smoked per day worldwide reach almost 15 billion. Cigarette companies don't even have to advertise. They are just throwing money away if they do. And nicotine is addictive.
(mostly on) for over 38 years and I am now not smoking. Your post about the Vagus nerve is interesting. I was told years ago that nicotine is a "better fit" than acetycholine, hence the body stops producing the needed neurotransmitter and the smokers lights up yet again to get the fix.
I believe I've never been completely successful in my smoking cessation attempts precisely because I wasn't stimulating my acetycholine production enough. I think the difference this time may be due to the fact that I started an intensive Yoga practice about three weeks before stopping. The deep breathing involved in the correct application of Yoga most definitely has stimulated my Vagus nerve!
This experience, and the reading I have done in the Wave series has compelled me to check out Éiriú Eolas. That will be my next "intensive" training, I suspect. My current Yoga class will end in May, and that will open up some more time to practice provided there is still time left to me. LOL!
I have used Chantix in the past, and am now as well, so that factor should be noted. Also, I have made a radical change in my diet in terms of all organics, lots of fruit and veggies, and very little processed crap.
Peace.
Most of the major brands of cigarettes made and sold in the US don't even contain tobacco leaf. They are made from a product called sheet tobacco. This is tobacco plant stems, stalks, roots and waste product from the wood pulp industry. This trash is ground up and pressed into sheets that are colored and treated with hundreds of other chemicals, most toxic, then shredded into something that resembles tobacco. The nicotine content is kept at just the precise level to keep you wanting more.
No testing has been done to evaluate what all of these additives, flavorings and toxins produce when burned and inhaled. It can't be good. Smoke organic, even if you have to roll your own. Note: I no longer trust American Spirit products since the RJR takeover.
It is interesting that the author of the article does not make the distinction between normal pure tobacco and additive loaded tobacco. The health benefits are clearly in the nicotine from what the article says, and one wonders when researchers will start to make a distinction between pure tobacco and additive loaded tobacco.