Mark
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- Jul 18, 2012
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(Continued)
Addictive or not, it seems that nicotine by itself is not that bad for you. A report put out by the Royal Society for Public Health last year said that though 90 per cent of the public think that nicotine is harmful, in fact it is “no more harmful to health than caffeine”. And, like caffeine, nicotine has potential health benefits. A natural plant alkaloid, it binds to and stimulates receptors in the brain that are important for thinking and memory. Dr Lynne Dawkins, an addiction expert, tells me: “There is emerging evidence that in certain conditions, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, nicotine may have a cognitive-enhancing effect.”
To test this claim the National Institute on Aging in the US has funded a trial of 300 patients with mild cognitive impairment (a precursor to Alzheimer’s). The patients, none of whom are smokers, will be randomly allocated to nicotine patches or placebo patches that they will have to wear for 16 hours a day. Over the next few years they will have regular health checks as well as memory and cognition tests. A similar, smaller study, published in 2012, found that non-smokers given nicotine patches saw improvements in memory, attention and reaction times.
Yet before you start slapping on the patches or firing up an e-cig you should be aware that though nicotine may help people who already have impaired memory, there’s no evidence it will help the rest of us. Although I was tested before and after a month of heavy vaping, the nicotine didn’t enhance my brain, apart from a small improvement in my fine motor skills that could apparently make me slightly better at sewing.
The main health justification for e-cigarettes is not that they can help to improve your memory but that they can help those who are keen to quit smoking tobacco — but do they? A recent meta-analysis (comparing lots of different studies) concluded that they don’t. Surprisingly enough this paper concluded that vapers are less likely to give up smoking than those who try other methods. It led to headlines along the lines of “E-cigarettes don’t help smokers quit — they may actually have the opposite effect”.
Like so much of the evidence used to attack or justify vaping, this finding was hugely contentious. Critics, such as Professor Peter Hajek from Queen Mary University of London, described it as “grossly misleading”. Professor Robert West of University College London pointed out that if this were true then quit rates would be falling in countries such as the UK where e-cigarettes are taking off. This isn’t happening. If anything we are seeing the reverse.
When Horizon conducted a small study in which a group of hardcore smokers were randomly allocated e-cigs, nicotine patches or going cold turkey, we found the vapers and those who slapped on the patches were far more successful at abandoning their fags.
E-cigs are not risk-free, and after a month of heavy vaping there were signs of increased inflammation in my lungs (which reversed rapidly when I stopped). Nonetheless I think that e-cigarettes could prove to be a game-changer, one of the great inventions of the age. That said, I have no desire to ever take another puff again.
Addictive or not, it seems that nicotine by itself is not that bad for you. A report put out by the Royal Society for Public Health last year said that though 90 per cent of the public think that nicotine is harmful, in fact it is “no more harmful to health than caffeine”. And, like caffeine, nicotine has potential health benefits. A natural plant alkaloid, it binds to and stimulates receptors in the brain that are important for thinking and memory. Dr Lynne Dawkins, an addiction expert, tells me: “There is emerging evidence that in certain conditions, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, nicotine may have a cognitive-enhancing effect.”
To test this claim the National Institute on Aging in the US has funded a trial of 300 patients with mild cognitive impairment (a precursor to Alzheimer’s). The patients, none of whom are smokers, will be randomly allocated to nicotine patches or placebo patches that they will have to wear for 16 hours a day. Over the next few years they will have regular health checks as well as memory and cognition tests. A similar, smaller study, published in 2012, found that non-smokers given nicotine patches saw improvements in memory, attention and reaction times.
Yet before you start slapping on the patches or firing up an e-cig you should be aware that though nicotine may help people who already have impaired memory, there’s no evidence it will help the rest of us. Although I was tested before and after a month of heavy vaping, the nicotine didn’t enhance my brain, apart from a small improvement in my fine motor skills that could apparently make me slightly better at sewing.
The main health justification for e-cigarettes is not that they can help to improve your memory but that they can help those who are keen to quit smoking tobacco — but do they? A recent meta-analysis (comparing lots of different studies) concluded that they don’t. Surprisingly enough this paper concluded that vapers are less likely to give up smoking than those who try other methods. It led to headlines along the lines of “E-cigarettes don’t help smokers quit — they may actually have the opposite effect”.
Like so much of the evidence used to attack or justify vaping, this finding was hugely contentious. Critics, such as Professor Peter Hajek from Queen Mary University of London, described it as “grossly misleading”. Professor Robert West of University College London pointed out that if this were true then quit rates would be falling in countries such as the UK where e-cigarettes are taking off. This isn’t happening. If anything we are seeing the reverse.
When Horizon conducted a small study in which a group of hardcore smokers were randomly allocated e-cigs, nicotine patches or going cold turkey, we found the vapers and those who slapped on the patches were far more successful at abandoning their fags.
E-cigs are not risk-free, and after a month of heavy vaping there were signs of increased inflammation in my lungs (which reversed rapidly when I stopped). Nonetheless I think that e-cigarettes could prove to be a game-changer, one of the great inventions of the age. That said, I have no desire to ever take another puff again.
