When it comes to cigarettes, schizophrenics just can't seem to get enough. They're two to three times more likely to smoke than the general population, and patients have been known to puff through up to four packs a day. New research on mice may explain this behavior: Nicotine spurs the production of a key neural protein that's scarce in schizophrenics--and that may help relieve their symptoms.

The 100 billion neurons in our brains are continually signaling one another. These impulses are like cars zooming through a city without traffic lights to deliver a message--they would pile up and the messages would get garbled. To keep neural signal traffic flowing, the brain uses certain neurotransmitters as stoplights to prevent neurons from firing out of turn. Reduced levels of one such neurotransmitter, called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), characterizes the brains of schizophrenia patients. Researchers think that without the stoplight effect of GABA, signals in the schizophrenic brain overlap and get jumbled in a sort of neural traffic jam, resulting in hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and anxiety.

New research confirms an association between smoking and a reduced risk for a rare benign tumor near the brain, but the addition of smokeless tobacco to the analysis suggests nicotine is not the protective substance.

The study using Swedish data suggests that men who currently smoke are almost 60 percent less likely than people who have never smoked to develop this tumor, called an acoustic neuroma. But men in the study who used snuff, which produces roughly the same amount of nicotine in the blood as smoking, had no reduced risk of tumor development.

"We see this effect with current smokers but don't see it with current snuff users, so we think that maybe the protective effect has something to do with the combustion process or one of the other chemicals in cigarettes that are not in snuff," said Sadie Palmisano, a doctoral student in epidemiology at Ohio State University and lead author of the study. "We learned something from exclusion."

Acoustic neuroma is a tumor that grows on the vestibular cochlear nerve connecting the ear to the brain. It is not cancer, but it can cause nerve damage as well as symptoms that include vertigo, ringing in the ears and hearing loss. The only treatment for these slow-growing tumors is surgical removal or high-powered radiation that reduces their size. About one in 100,000 people per year develops these growths, which account for approximately 8 percent of all primary tumors inside the skull in the United States.

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., have found that when they deplete a smoker's self control, smoking a cigarette may restore self-control.

The study, published in a recent issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (Vol. 121, No.1), exposed a test group and a control group - totaling 132 nicotine dependent smokers - to an emotional video depicting environmental damage. One group in the study expressed their natural emotional reactions (no depletion of self-control) while the second group suppressed their responses (self-control depletion). Half of the participants in each group were subsequently allowed to smoke a cigarette. Everyone then was asked to complete a frustrating task that required self-control.

"Our goal was to study whether tobacco smoking affects an individual's self-control resources," said lead author Bryan W. Heckman, M.A., a graduate student at the Moffitt Tobacco Research and Intervention Program and the Department of Psychology at the University of South Florida. "We hypothesized that participants who underwent a self-control depletion task would demonstrate less persistence on behavioral tasks requiring self-control as compared to those with self-control intact, when neither group was allowed to smoke. However, we also hypothesized that we would not find this performance decrement among participants who were permitted to smoke."

It is well-established that 25-30% of all cancer are caused soley by tobacco consumption - a completely avoidable cause.

But what if the tobacco itself were not actually the primary cause of the cancer, but something else contaminating it? And what if it the tobacco industry knew this lethal contaminant was in their product, and even knew how to remove it, but did and said nothing for over 30 years in order to conceal this deadly secret from the public?

In 1998, major tobacco industries' internal secret documents were made available online by the Master Settlement Agreement, revealing that the industry was aware of the presence of a radioactive substance in tobacco as early as 1959.

It was discovered in 1964 that the cancer-causing radioactive substance was Polonium 210, which millions still inhale in their cigarette smoke, unwittingly. Polonium 210 is a byproduct of the decay of uranium daughter isotopes, which, while occurring naturally in the environment, are primarily found within our soil as a result of pollution from various industries. Uranium mining is one source, as are the nuclear and coal-fired power industries. In fact, "fly ash" produced from coal-fired power carries 100 times more radiation into the surrounding environment than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.¹ This is, of course, when nuclear power plants properly contain their radioactive fuel and waste and don't release massive, irretrievable quantities of radioisotopes into the environment, as occurred in Chernobyl and Fukushima. Nuclear weapons and munitions (depleted uranium), are another well-known source of global contamination. No matter where the uranium comes from, tobacco plants selectively absorbs and concentrates the byproduct of its decay, Polonium 210, to dangerous -- if not lethal -- levels.

On July 13, 1994, an obituary in the Washington Post reported the death, at age 60, of Richard Joshua Reynolds, III, an heir to the founder of the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company. The headline and an accompanying photograph showed the deceased smoking a cigarette and implied that Reynolds died from emphysema, caused by smoking. Reading the obituary in detail, however, it turned out that he had quit smoking eight years prior to his death; and that there was a family history of emphysema, the deceased's own father having died from the disease at the age of 58. Furthermore, the obituary disclosed that the deceased's own doctor was unable to state the "immediate cause" of his death.

Medical opinion concerning emphysema has had an interesting history. My 1973 edition of "Diagnosis and Treatment" (a standard medical textbook), states that emphysema is a disease which involves destruction of the alveolar (lung) tissue but that the cause is unknown, although "many doctors" think it is caused by "cigarette smoking". In 1973, Chronic Pulmonary Obstructive Disease (COPD) had not yet been invented. COPD, while now discussed at length in modern medical textbooks, did not exist in 1973.

Some time subsequent to 1973, a genetic cause of emphysema was discovered. In an article in the latest on-line edition of Grolier's Encyclopedia, Howard Buechner, M.D., explains that a significant number of the people with the disease lack a gene that controls the liver's production of a protein called alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT). This protein controls or degrades an enzyme called neutrophil elastase, produced by the white blood cells. When the enzyme is left unchecked, it destroys alveolar tissue.

Yes, it is true, smoking does not cause lung cancer. It is only one of many risk factors for lung cancer. I initially was going to write an article on how the professional literature and publications misuse the language by saying "smoking causes lung cancer"^1,2, but the more that I looked into how biased the literature, professional organizations, and the media are, I modified this article to one on trying to put the relationship between smoking and cancer into perspective. (No, I did not get paid off by the tobacco companies, or anything else like that.)

When the tobacco executives testified to Congress that they did not believe that smoking caused cancer, their answers were probably truthful and I agree with that statement. Now if they were asked if smoking increases the risk of getting lung cancer, then the answer based upon current evidence should be "yes." But even so, the risk of a smoker getting lung cancer is much less than anyone would suspect. Based upon what the media and anti-tobacco organizations say, one would think that if you smoke, you get lung cancer (a 100% correlation). You would at least expect a 50+% occurrence before someone used the word "cause."

Would you believe that the real number is < 10% (see Appendix A)? Yes, a US white male (USWM) cigarette smoker has an 8% lifetime chance of dying from lung cancer but the USWM nonsmoker also has a 1% chance of dying from lung cancer (see Appendix A). In fact, the data used is biased in the way they are collected and the actual risk for a smoker is probably less. I personally would not smoke cigarettes and take that risk, nor recommend cigarette smoking to others but the numbers were less than I had been led to believe. I only did the data on white males because they account for the largest number of lung cancers in the US, but a similar analysis can be done for other groups using the CDC data.

Before the American Indian culture was shattered, the Indians used an unprocessed tobacco in pipes ceremoniously and for healing. Yes, healing lung disorders.

Indian tobacco is known as Lobelia inflate or lobelia, which some herbalists, unafraid of being politically incorrect for using an herb once banned by the FDA, use medicinally today. Not necessarily to smoke, but dispensed as tinctures or tablets.

Lobelia for asthma and other lung/bronchia disorders was a topic of another article from this author. This article will focus on lobelia as the most effective smoking cessation agent without side effects today.

A recent pharmaceutical smoking cessation product on the market drove many mad enough to commit suicide, murder or both. Few knew the severity of this smoking cessation drug's side effects until an independent found a major flaw with the company's adverse report papers.

Nicotine could help people with early memory loss maintain or improve their attention and memory, a new study suggests.

Study participants with mild memory problems who received nicotine performed better six months later at tasks such as reacting to a stimulus on a computer screen and memorizing a paragraph, according to the study.

The results are important because doctors have gotten better at diagnosing dementia while the condition is still in its early stages, said study co-author Dr. Paul Newhouse, a professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

"The earlier you can intervene, the better," Newhouse said. "We want to treat people as early as we can and save as much brain function as we can."

The study is published today (Jan. 9) in the journal Neurology.

Vagus Nerve Stimulation Blocks Cytokine Storm of Swine Flu

Nicotine has an anti-inflammatory effect via the vagus nerve, which is useful against many diseases, and perhaps may block the cytokine storm of the H1N1 swine flu.

Nicotine stimulates the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. At the end of this pathway are immune cells that produce anti-inflammatory cytokines that block inflammation. Thus, nicotine, although one of the most addictive chemicals, can have beneficial effects on inflammatory diseases, such as arthritis, asthma, cancer, inflammatory bowel diseases and perhaps, H1N1.

Tobacco Smoke Is Toxic but also Anti-Inflammatory

Paradoxically tobacco smoke contains hundreds of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals that produce inflammatory reactions and numerous degenerative diseases, but it also contains nicotine that is anti-inflammatory. Smokers assault their bodies, but moderate and obscure the inflammatory degeneration and disease, until they stop the nicotine exposure.

Nicotine Withdrawal Is Inflammatory

The anti-inflammatory benefits of nicotine reveal the inflammatory basis of many unexpected diseases. Nicotine withdrawal is severe, partly because it leads to rebound release of inflammatory cytokines, inflammation and inflammatory disease symptoms that include depression and obesity. Smoking cessation may contribute to more severe symptoms of H1N1 infections.

People who have never smoked, but who live in areas with higher air pollution levels, are roughly 20 percent more likely to die from lung cancer than people who live with cleaner air, researchers conclude in a new study.

"It's another argument for why the regulatory levels (for air pollutants) be as low as possible," said Francine Laden, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved in the research.

Though smoking is the number one cause of lung cancer, about one in 10 people who develop lung cancer have never smoked.

"Lung cancer in 'never smokers' is an important cancer. It's the sixth leading cause of cancer in United States," said Michelle Turner, the lead author of the study and a graduate student at the University of Ottawa.

Previous estimates of how many non-smokers get lung cancer range from 14 to 21 out of every 100,000 women and five to 14 out of every 100,000 men.