Does smoking tobacco fulfill a nutritional need?
As counter-intuitive as this question might seem, nicotine is actually a nutrient source. It is one form in which we can obtain a vital nutrient: vitamin B3, also called niacin or nicotinic acid.
I have never seen this angle to smoking discussed in a clear form until I came across, through some friends on facebook, a very informative but kind of hidden away write-up by a parent who refused to just accept as fact what "everybody knows" - that kids start to smoke because of tobacco company propaganda.
Ironically, the article was languishing in a place called the CyberCemetery, an archive of government websites that have ceased operation (usually websites of defunct government agencies and commissions that have issued a final report).
The source URL is at govinfo.library.unt.edu/tobacco/
Here is the text...
Archive
teenage smoking and tobacco company coverups - video4@ckt.net, 2/23/01 1:57AM
A cursory study into tobacco use by teenagers appears to have discovered a new door into the causes of teenage smoking. Nicotine has long been accepted as the addictive portion of tobacco products, but what is apparently little known is that nicotine and niacin (vitamin B3) are analogues. An examination into this previously untrod avenue may yield significant new data into the treatment of teenage tobacco use.
Much research has been done establishing that teenagers do use tobacco, but very little has looked into the actual causes and none could be found on E.R.I.C. that has been done from the aspect that tobacco may fulfill a nutritional need.
As a parent of six children and a non-traditional graduate student, adolescent smoking is something I have had to deal with at least six times. As a graduate student with a grounding in communication, it is of primary concern to me, with all the information targeting teen smoking, that there has not been a more significant effect on the target audience -- adolescents.
The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (1998) shows a steady increase in smoking in that while 9% of the children in the 8th grade surveyed admitted to smoking every day, 24.6% of the 12th graders smoke daily. The Federal Interagency Forum offered no answers but did recommend more study.
The statistics would seem to show that Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, L. 1957) does not apply to smoking. Applying Festinger's theory, a greater amount of resources dedicated to preventing teen smoking should have led to a greater decrease in teen smoking, but that does not seem to be the case. In fact, the opposite seems to have occurred. The teenagers exposed to the larger amount of anti-smoking information (the 12th Graders) were almost 3 times as likely to be smokers. This led me to ask whether the addictiveness of nicotine might have some influence on why a theory like Festinger's, so well grounded in other areas, did not seem to work here.
Teenagers use tobacco. That is an established fact. What is up for contention is why do teenagers use tobacco, in spite of all the propaganda cultural pressure aimed at telling them not to. Many court cases have been fought on this issue but there is still little current information due to the mutability of the subject matter, children.
If teenagers' diets are niacin deficient and their bodies know what their minds don't ( and their teachers won't tell them), that niacin and nicotine are the same thing, their bodies would make them crave tobacco as the source of a necessary nutrient, but being a matter of taste, they would not be able to describe it scientifically. An anecdotal reply might be -- "I don't know why I like it; I just do," with no understanding that it's fulfilling necessary needs of the nervous system, like orange juice provides antioxidants for the body.. B Complex vitamins are just as important as vitamin C. A lack of vitamin C compromises the immune system; a lack of B vitamins compromises the nervous system.
Another example is Iodine. Iodine is a poison but it is also a necessary nutrient. The body only needs a thimble full of Iodine for a lifetime but without that thimble full a lifetime is only a few years. The endocrine system self destructs without it. A smoker may only get a thimble full of Niacin from a lifetime of smoking (10-20mcg per cigarette), but at least they have that lifetime to discover and correct the problem (poor diet, alcoholism or malabsorptive bowel), which is how to get the Niacin without the other 43 carcinogenic substances the American Cancer Society has identified in Tobacco smoke.
The intention of this study is to discover if teenage tobacco use, smoking and other, may be the result of a niacin deficient diet, not tobacco advertising. There may appear to have been an intentional deception in hiding the fact that niacin and nicotine are basically the same thing, but simply put, it's because until now there has been no funding to look at tobacco from the point of view of a nutritional function. Tobacco has been used for a wide range of other maladies from Asthma ( Niacin prevents Histamine release Robert Thompson Cybervitamins.com) to Bowel obstruction (A Modern Herbal guide 1931).
My argument is that the real cause has been overlooked in the "rush to judgment" and nutritional deficiencies have been misdiagnosed as mere addictions, subject to whim and will. The body needs niacin and it knows nicotine will work if niacin isn't available. This is not a conscious function.
The objective is to decrease adolescent smoking by removing the dietary deficiency, hence the body's need for the nicotine. The U.S. RDA for niacin ranges from about 15mg to about 20mg per day, but to get that much a person needs to eat a serving of chicken, a serving of turkey, a serving of Spinach and a bowl of fortified cereal each day or smoke 2 packs of cigarettes.
This shed an entirely new light on the problem of teen smoking. It meant that teens might not be smoking because it was "cool" or because the nicotine was addictive; it might be because tobacco was fulfilling a nutritional deficiency in their diets. Niacin deficiency is common outside the United States and, in its severest form, Pellagra, it can kill. It is rare in this country because since Dr Goldberger discovered niacin as a nutrient in 1895, corn meal and wheat flour have been fortified much the same way as salt is fortified with iodine.
Iodine, as a substance, is a poison, but in very small amounts, it is required by the body for thyroid function and preventing unwanted growths like goiters. A body requires less than a thimbleful of iodine for a lifetime, but without that thimbleful, it doesn't have a life. Niacin is similar in that it doesn't take a lot (20 mg RDA) and too much is toxic. A single gram of niacin is toxic to most humans. [Actually, the writer here may have some false information of niacin toxicity. People have been known to take several grams of niacin without any toxic effects. - Sepp]
Niacin, like iodine, is hard to find in the diet without supplementing it somewhere. For example, to receive the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of niacin (20 mg), a person would need to eat 3 servings of poultry, 3 servings of pork and a baked potato with skin to get 20 mg of natural niacin. Other alternatives would include 5 bowls of fortified cereal or 15 servings of french fries. Another problem is that some people with gastrointestinal problems have trouble absorbing niacin, even if it is in the diet.
I realized that there was nothing wrong with Festinger's Theory; what was wrong was the current view of nicotine as a cultural or behavioral symptom. A person has only 2 choices when it comes to oxygen, do it or die. The same choice applies to niacin and iodine. Without it we die. Lack of niacin or iodine may not be as quick a death as a lack of oxygen, but the results are just as certain.
The result of this information was the formulation of a theory that teenagers may be smoking to fulfill the nutritional need for niacin. In order to test this, a comparison will be done comparing teen smoking and diet. The best way to do this is with a controlled survey of the high schools. If the information from the survey supports that teen smoking has a dietary link, then efforts will be made to improve the nutritional levels of that segment of our society that seems to have the least concern for nutrition, teenagers.
- - -
So much for what I found in that CyberCemetary.
But there is more ... Rosemary, a reader who is also a gardener and knows a lot about plant chemistry has added a comment, outlining the history of niacin, and how it was first produced by oxidation of tobacco left-overs. The comment is still there, but she has been good enough to offer the supporting links as well.
So here is the piece by Rosemary, with links...
Organic Chemistry
"1867, Huber provides the first description of nicotinic acid from the oxidization of nicotine. These methods are described by R Laiblin in 1879
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/1879/CA/ca8793600775
(Unfortunately now requires log in)
Organic Synthesis Prep - Method to oxidize nicotine with nitric acid to make Nicotinic acid - 1925
http://www.orgsyn.org/orgsyn/prep.asp?prep=cv1p0385
Dr Goldberger then found that Pellagra was a nutritional disease, much to the annoyance of some of the medical establishment of the time who insisted that Pellagra was hereditary, or even a result of eating bad corn.
Goldberger and the "Pellagra Germ"
"Critics, many unable to part from the germ theory of pellagra, raised doubts. Goldberger hoped to squelch those reservations by demonstrating the existence of a particular substance that when removed from the diet of healthy individuals resulted in pellagra."
"In the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association, critic W.J. MacNeal challenged the results. One Birmingham physician referred to the experiment as "half-baked." Still others thought the whole experiment a fraud."
http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/goldberger/docs/pellegra_5.htm
A STUDY OF THE HEREDITY OF PELLAGRA IN SPARTANBURG COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA
Vol. XVIII No. 1, JULY 1916
"Early in the spring of 1913 the desirability of the study of pellagra from the viewpoint of heredity as a causative factor was brought to the attention of the Thompson-McFadden Pellagra Commission by Dr. Charles B. Davenport, Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y."
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=654079
"Conrad A. Elvehjem, (May 27, 1901–July 27, 1962), was internationally known as a biochemist in nutrition. In 1937 he identified a molecule found in fresh meat and yeast as a new vitamin, nicotinic acid, now called niacin. His discovery led directly to the cure of human pellagra, once a major health problem in the United States."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Elvehjem
"Cure of Experimental Canine Blacktongue with Optimal and Minimal Doses of Nicotinic Acid - 1938"
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/16/6/541.short
But of course all this upset the tobacco prohibitionists too so the name was changed in 1942.
niacin
"pellagra-preventing vitamin in enriched bread," 1942, coined from ni(cotinic) ac(id) + -in, chemical suffix; suggested by the American Medical Association as a more commercially viable name than nicotinic acid.
( Expanded )
"The new name was found to be necessary because some anti-tobacco groups warned against enriched bread because it would foster the cigarette habit." ["Cooperative Consumer," Feb. 28, 1942]
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/niacin
"Niacin was first discovered from the oxidation of nicotine to form nicotinic acid. When the properties of nicotinic acid were discovered, it was thought prudent to choose a name to dissociate it from nicotine, in order to avoid the perception that vitamins or niacin-rich food contains nicotine. The resulting name 'niacin' was derived from nicotinic acid + vitamin."
"Niacin is also referred to as Vitamin B3 because it was the third of the B vitamins to be discovered. It has historically been referred to as "vitamin PP", a name derived from the term "pellagra-preventing factor".
http://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Niacin.html
The Nation's Food - 1941
A necessary vitamin is B—a group of at least half a dozen different chemicals. Most radio listeners, said Vice President Wallace last week, know B as the "oomph vitamin, that puts the sparkle in your eye, the spring in your step, the zip in your soul!" Vitamin B is found abundantly in whole wheat and coarse grains, is appreciably reduced in the milling process, when the rough coat is "scalped"' from wheat kernel.
Most of the big flour mills and bakers have recently agreed to put vitamin B1; nicotinic acid and iron back into their flour and bread. But experts last week pointed out that such "enriched bread," although a step forward, was not the ideal solution of the problem."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,795342,00.html
It then became law to enrich bread with nicotinic acid/niacin and for a while this was made from tobacco waste until quinoline, a coal tar derivative, was found to be cheaper and tobacco couldn't compete.
Effectiveness of food fortification in the United States: the case of pellagra
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1446222/
"Nicotinic Acid Utilization of Tobacco Waste" 1960
"Nicotinic acid was first made by the oxidation of nicotine and Whiffens operated a commercial process in this country starting with tobacco.
Later they were supplied with nicotine by the British Nicotine Company and continued the oxidation.
Finally - before the Second World War - they found they were unable to compete with manufacturers starting from quinoline and picoline although it could be made directly from tobacco waste, from pyridine, some other coal tar bases, nicotine, anabasine, nor-nicotine or mixed tobacco alkaloids.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture sponsored work aimed to make nicotine compete, as early as 1942, but although a new catalytic oxidation process was developed quinoline was still the cheapest source of nicotinic acid.
Comparative costs were published in 1951 by Coal Tar Products of Philadelphia"
http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/guildford/pdf/002/00000711.pdf
"LORILLARD RESEARCH ON NICOTINIC ACID - 1938 to 43"
"Parmele informed Mr Riefner that work on nicotinic acid could be confirmed free of charge by Dr Elvehjem at the University of Wisconsin.
Dr Elvehjam analyzed samples prepared by Parmele by the microbiological assay method of Snell and Wright. The mirobiological method was more specific than the chemical method employed by Parmele.
Lower levels of nicotinic acid were found, but Parmele's essential findings were confirmed"
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/document/page?tid=jbw98c00&page=1
"THE ABSORPTION OF NIACIN IN THE SMOKING OF CIGARETTES - 1944"
"The niacin content of unfortified tobacco was found to be 0.13mg per cigarette."
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/document/page?tid=bde38e00&page=2
"Niacin and Niacinamide In Flue Cured Cigarette Smoke Condensate August 10 1960"
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/action/document/page?tid=pnx69d00&page=1
But the amount of niacin in cigarette smoke is far less than in a cup of coffee.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I thought you might find these interesting too.
Nicotinic acid - 1941
Dear Sirs,
Referring to the subject of nicotinic acid, or the anti- pellagra vitamin, in cigarette smoke, permit us to state that we have heard from the University of Wisconsin, and are pleased to report that they have confirmed our findings in every respect. In other words, in an aqueous solution of the smoke from ten ordinary Old Golds they find .8 milligram of nicotinic acid,.."page 1
In other words, we analyzed the saliva, which would have otherwise been swallowed. No Nicotinic Acid occurred in the smoker's saliva before smoking. We feel that we have made this report sufficiently long to cover the discoveries, which we regard as quite remarkable" page2
http://tobaccodocuments.org/product_design/04365497-5498.html
I found this one languishing in that government archive...
"For more than a year, I have been trying to expose a deep dark secret that threatens to destroy more children on the pretense of protecting them from harm.There are hundreds of anti-smoking and anti-tobacco campaigns claiming to be trying to stop children from using tobacco, and none of them have addressed the root issue of why people smoke or use tobacco.
People use tobacco for the same reason they would eat a candy bar. There is something in it the body wants. That something is not just an "addictive drug" as the rhetoric of the last 50 years has claimed, but actually a necessary nutrient, niacin, vitamin B-3."
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/tobacco/_PReptdisc/00000026.htm
It's a great pleasure to help to unravel the mystery, it baffled me for quite a while.
Regards
Rose
Thank you Rose, for your work on this! Even though at this time the data goes against what "everyone knows" about smoking and its dangers, it is a story that needs to be told.
And as we are telling the story here, there is another part to this as well.
Some years ago, when Sir Richard Doll died, another piece of the tobacco puzzle came to light. Sir Doll was a famous English epidemiologist who is known for having established the link between smoking and cancer. He "proved" smoking causes cancer. What he didn't disclose was, that at the time and for about two decades after, he was being lavishly paid by Monsanto, the large chemical concern that has since distinguished itself as one of the most hated companies in the world...
Sir Richard Doll - Smoking and Cancer Alarm False
Renowned cancer scientist was paid by chemical firm for 20 years
Sir Richard Doll: Death, Dioxin and PVC
So considering Monsanto's unsavory track record, would it be unreasonable to harbor the suspicion that Sir Doll helped Monsanto protect its chemicals from liability, and falsely blamed tobacco smoke for all the damage?
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Wednesday January 25 2012
updated on Thursday January 26 2017
URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2012/01/25/does_smoking_tobacco_fulfill_a_nutritional_need.htm
Readers' Comments
Durk Pearson (Life Extension) discusses this in one of his books
Posted by: ruth on May 4, 2012 09:34 PM
The confusion is understandable when you know it's history.
Organic Chemistry
"1867, Huber provides the first description of nicotinic acid from the oxidization of nicotine.
Organic Synthesis Prep
Method to oxidize nicotine with nitric acid to make Nicotinic acid - 1925
Dr Goldberger then found that Pellagra was a nutritional disease, much to the annoyance of some of the medical establishment of the time who insisted that Pellagra was hereditary, or even a result of eating bad corn.
"Conrad A. Elvehjem, (May 27, 1901–July 27, 1962), was internationally known as a biochemist in nutrition. In 1937 he identified a molecule found in fresh meat and yeast as a new vitamin, nicotinic acid, now called niacin. His discovery led directly to the cure of human pellagra, once a major health problem in the United States."
"Cure of Experimental Canine Blacktongue with Optimal and Minimal Doses of Nicotinic Acid
1938"
But of course all this upset the tobacco prohibitionists too so the name was changed in 1942.
niacin
"pellagra-preventing vitamin in enriched bread," 1942, coined from ni(cotinic) ac(id) + -in, chemical suffix; suggested by the American Medical Association as a more commercially viable name than nicotinic acid.
"The new name was found to be necessary because some anti-tobacco groups warned against enriched bread because it would foster the cigarette habit." ["Cooperative Consumer," Feb. 28, 1942]
"Niacin was first discovered from the oxidation of nicotine to form nicotinic acid. When the properties of nicotinic acid were discovered, it was thought prudent to choose a name to dissociate it from nicotine, in order to avoid the perception that vitamins or niacin-rich food contains nicotine. The resulting name 'niacin' was derived from nicotinic acid + vitamin."
"Niacin is also referred to as Vitamin B3 because it was the third of the B vitamins to be discovered. It has historically been referred to as "vitamin PP", a name derived from the term "pellagra-preventing factor".
The Nation's Food - 1941
A necessary vitamin is B—a group of at least half a dozen different chemicals. Most radio listeners, said Vice President Wallace last week, know B as the "oomph vitamin, that puts the sparkle in your eye, the spring in your step, the zip in your soul!" Vitamin B is found abundantly in whole wheat and coarse grains, is appreciably reduced in the milling process, when the rough coat is "scalped"' from wheat kernel.
Most of the big flour mills and bakers have recently agreed to put vitamin B1; nicotinic acid and iron back into their flour and bread. But experts last week pointed out that such "enriched bread," although a step forward, was not the ideal solution of the problem."
TIME
It then became law to enrich bread with nicotinic acid/niacin and for a while this was made from tobacco waste until quinoline acoal tar derivative was found to be cheaper and tobacco couldn't compete.
"Nicotinic Acid Utilization of Tobacco Waste"
""Nicotinic acid was first made by the oxidation of nicotine and Whiffens operate a commercial process in this country starting with tobacco.
Later they were supplied with nicotine by the British Nicotine Company and continued the oxidation.
Finally - before the Second World War - they found they were unable to compete with manufacturers starting from quinoline and picoline although it could be made directly from tobacco waste, from pyridine, some other coal tar bases, nicotine, anabasine, nor-nicotine or mixed tobacco alkaloids."
"LORILLARD RESEARCH ON NICOTINIC ACID - 1938 to 43
"Parmele informed Mr Riefner that work on nicotinic acid could be confirmed free of charge by Dr Elvehjem at the University of Wisconsin.
Dr Elvehjam analyzed samples prepared by Parmele by the microbiological assay method of Snell and Wright. The mirobiological method was more specific than the chemical method employed by Parmele.
Lower levels of nicotinic acid were found, but Parmele's essential findings were confirmed"
"THE ABSORPTION OF NIACIN IN THE SMOKING OF CIGARETTES - 1944"
"Niacin and Niacinamide In Flue Cured Cigarette Smoke Condensate August 10 1960"
But the amount of niacin in cigarette smoke is far less than in a cup of coffee.
Incidentally,as I'm sure you know, nicotine is not the only interesting thing in tobacco, Solanesol is extracted from the green leaf and used to make Co-enzyme Q10 and vitamin K.
But I'm a gardener not a nutritionist.
If this is anyway interesting to you, I do have all the links.
Posted by: Rose on July 15, 2012 05:56 AM
Great comment Rose, and lots of detail to the story. I didn't know all those finer points.
Interesting about the other stuff in tobacco leaves. I suppose I'll have to try some in my drink one of these days...
Posted by: Sepp on July 15, 2012 08:09 PM
About those links Rose, if you can't post them here, please send them (sepp@lastrega.com) and I will work them into your comment...
Posted by: Sepp on September 3, 2012 05:23 AM
North American natives that smoked'Cannabis' and then tobacco once introduced by Europeans never suffered lung and heart disease. If so, it would have been reported. Smoking tobacco is the common thread seen with recovering alcoholics. Not only are they, myself included, niacin dependent, but susceptible to the compounded thoughts that in the worst cases result with the condition known as Schizophrenia. Alcohol depletes all the B vitamins and when niacin, or B3, is dropped below the body's required balance, strange fictional characters tend to visit. Abram Hoffer and Bill Wilson knew that B3 helped 70 alcoholics white knuckling it in the early days of AA. That same percentage was found in the Schizophrenia studies when subjects were restored to mental health by niacin, Vitamin C, and B6. Natural tobacco helps sustain a B3 balance, but should not be the staple supplement. It should be with food, hence, children should not be conditioned to smoke for curative reasons.
Posted by: realnuz on September 5, 2012 07:06 PM
I remember reading about recovering alcoholics and their consumption of coffee and cigarettes, it seemed strange that the scientists hadn't spotted the obvious link.
Coffee And Cigarette Consumption Are High Among AA Attendees
2008
"More than one million Americans currently participate in the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program. While AA participants are reportedly notorious for their coffee drinking and cigarette smoking, very little research has quantified their consumption of these two products.
Recent findings confirm that coffee and cigarette use among this population is greater than among the general U.S. population: most AA members drink coffee and more than half smoke."
"Martin added that many questions remain about the effects of coffee and cigarettes on recovering alcoholics.
"What do cigarettes or coffee do for them; how do they believe that they are affected by smoking and drinking coffee?," he asked.
"Is this behavior simply a way to bond or connect in AA meetings, analogous to the peace pipe among North American Indians, or do constituents of these natural compounds result in pharmacological actions that affect the brain?"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080718180731.htm
Medicine: Vitamins & the Three Ms
Monday, June 17, 1957
"Dr. Spies proved, too, that there was no essential difference between the North's "alcoholic pellagra" and the South's "endemic pellagra." He did this first by feeding up Skid Row derelicts at the same time as he allowed them as much corn liquor as they could drink; their pellagra cleared, showing that it had been caused not by alcohol but by the absence of essential food factors"
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867726-1,00.html
Coffee
Basic Chemical Reactions Occurring in the Roasting Process
"The best cup characteristic are produced when the ratio of the degradation of trigonelline to the derivation of Nicotinic Acid remains linear. The control model of this reaction ratio is a time/temperature/energy relationship. The environment temperature (ET) establishes the pyrolysis region for the desired chemical reactions while the energy value (BTU) and system transfer efficiency (STE) determines the rate of reaction propagation and linearity of Nicotinic Acid derivation to degradation of trigonelline"
http://www.sweetmarias.com/roast.carlstaub.html
Trigonelline is a pyridine alkaloid like nicotine.
" Niacin is formed during the roasting process, and coffee can contain 10-40mg of niacin per 100 g, depending on the extent of roasting, thus making a significant contribution to average intakes of niacin"
http://www.answers.com/topic/coffee
Posted by: Rose on September 6, 2012 01:14 PM
A previous poster mentions Schizophrenia and I once heard the doctors believed with that their heavy smoking they must be self treating in some way.
But with what and why?
Pellagra Cure
"Last week the Journal of the American Medical Association printed two articles on pellagra showing the startlingly beneficial results of a new treatment."
"Nicotinic acid, a distant relative (about second cousin once removed) of tobacco's nicotine, is found in yeast, wheat germ and liver. When considerable quantities were fed to some 300 patients with pellagra, their sores healed, their cramps disappeared.
Even patients who were violently insane dramatically regained their wits within 48 hours"
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788409,00.html
"The only certain method used by early pellagrologists was to give their patients in the mental hospitals small amounts of nicotinic acid. If they recovered they diagnosed them pellagra, if they did not they diagnosed them schizophrenia"
http://www.doctoryourself.com/hoffer_niacin.html
"The use of 'megadoses' of niacin was first tried by Drs Humphrey Osmond and Abram Hoffer in 1951. So impressed were they with the results in acute schizophrenics that, in 1953, they ran the first double-blind therapeutic trials in the history of psychiatry. Their first two trials showed significant improvement giving at least 3gs (3,000mg) a day, compared to placebos. They also found that chronic schizophrenics, not first-time sufferers but long-term inpatients, showed little improvement.
The results of six double blind controlled trials showed that the natural recovery rate was doubled. Later they found that even chronic patients, treated for several years with niacin in combination with other nutrients, often recovered"
http://www.foodforthebrain.org/content.asp?id_Content=1638
However
"Hoffer's treatment for schizophrenia and theories of orthomolecular medicine remain controversial as they have not been generally accepted by the mainstream medical community as of 2006.
An American Psychiatric Association Task Force Report of July 1973 on using niacin in treating schizophrenia claimed both methodological flaws in Hoffer's early work and other studies which failed to show clear benefit of this therapy.
Hoffer and Osmond wrote a lengthy rebuttal to this report, citing many errors, misrepresentations, and biases.
However niacin, B6, and ascorbates are still not widely used or recommended in the conventional treatments of schizophrenia.
Some other limited studies that did not meet Hoffer's original conditions have also failed to find benefits in use of megavitamin therapy to treat schizophrenia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Hoffer
Response
http://www.amazon.com/review/RKIHZ7FI7DY9B
Nicotine ( ? )Helps Schizophrenics With Attention And Memory
"Participants with and without schizophrenia were then asked to smoke while taking a drug called mecamylamine, which blocks nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain, preventing the nicotine from acting on those receptors.
Mecamylamine blocked the ability of smoking to improve cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, but not in persons without mental illness.
The findings suggest that when people with schizophrenia smoke, they may in part be self--medicating with nicotine to remedy cognitive deficits."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050710202418.htm
But why?
Nicotinic Receptors, Dopaminergic and Serotonergic Neurotransmission and Schizophrenia
"Schizophrenia is a debilitating disorder that affects approximately 1 of the population.
Studies show that schizophrenia seems to be associated with changes to nicotinic receptors within the brain.
In schizophrenia there is a loss of nicotinic receptors as the disease progresses, and, further studies have shown a genetic mutation in nicotinic receptors in patients suffering schizophrenia with the presence of an aberrant type of nicotinic receptor found in these patients"
Nicotinic Receptors in Parkinson's Disease:- There are 2 main types of nicotinic receptor present in brain, the alpha4 and the alpha7 type, although many additional types also exist.
Nicotinic receptors are largely localized to basal ganglia structures; and thus are of direct relevance to the fine control of movement. Interestingly, in Parkinson's disease there is a loss of nicotinic receptors in these regions"
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/pharmacology/research/groups/loiacono.html
So it would appear that with damaged, mutated or simply missing nicotinic receptors of a certain type, schizophrenics may be bathing the ones that remain in niacin, much as someone who is hard of hearing turns up the volume on the TV set.
But niacin is not the only thing in cigarette smoke, modern science has recently discovered the importance of nitric oxide to normal function,in the body and the brain, we make it constantly.
Nitric oxide: From menace to marvel of the decade
"Previously, nitric oxide was regarded as an environmental pollutant and little else: at best a chemically reactive nuisance, at worst a poison. In the exhaust fumes of cars it reacted readily with oxygen to produce smog, increasing the risk of asthma. When discharged into the atmosphere from power station chimneys it contributed to the ecological damage from acid rain."
"Consequently, a response bordering on disbelief greeted the discovery that cells lining the walls of blood vessels, endothelial cells, intentionally synthesised nitric oxide as a muscle relaxant. The molecule is short-lived, and a constant supply is generated by endothelial cells in response to the sheer stress of the blood flow on the artery wall. The notion that such a noxious little molecule should also hold a key to a healthy body and mind was counter-intuitive, and is still disconcerting to some people."
web.archive.org/web/20061129131744/
http://www.absw.org.uk/Briefings/Nitric+oxide.htm
( http://tinyurl.com/Briefings-Nitric-Oxide )
Nitric oxide is a very short lived molecule and this might be another reason for the heavy smoking in schizophrenia.
From the Monash link
"A substantial component of schizophrenic symptomatology appears to arise from deficiencies in an ability to automatically filter or "gate" irrelevant thoughts and sensory stimuli from intruding into conscious awareness. In schizophrenic patients, there is a higher than normal prevalence of tobacco smoking (90)"
Your Brain Boots Up Like a Computer
"As we yawn and open our eyes in the morning, the brain stem sends little puffs of nitric oxide to another part of the brain, the thalamus, which then directs it elsewhere.
Like a computer booting up its operating system before running more complicated programs, the nitric oxide triggers certain functions that set the stage for more complex brain operations, according to a new study.
In these first moments of the day, sensory information floods the system—the bright sunlight coming through the curtains, the time on the screeching alarm clock—and all of it needs to be processed and organized, so the brain can understand its surroundings and begin to perform more complex tasks.
"The thinking part of the brain is applying a sort of stencil to the information coming in and what the nitric oxide is doing is allowing more refinement of that stencil," says Dwayne Godwin, an associate professor at Wake Forest University and lead author of the study, which was funded by the National Eye Institute.
The little two-atom molecule, it seems, is partly responsible for our ability to perceive whatever it is we're sensing."
"The finding, published last week in the journal Neuroscience, changes the way scientists understand nitric oxide's role in the brain, and it also has them rethinking the function of the thalamus, where it is released.
The thalamus was thought to be a fairly primitive structure, sort of a gate that could either open and allow sensory information to stream into the cortex, the higher functioning part of the brain, or cut off the flow entirely.
Godwin says the new research shows it's more accurate to think of the thalamus not as a gate but as a club bouncer, who doesn't simply allow a huge rush of people to go in or no one at all, but picks and chooses whom to let in and out."
http://www.livescience.com/980-brain-boots-computer.html
Nitric Oxide Can Alter Brain Function
"Research from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit at the University of Leicester shows that nitric oxide (NO) can change the computational ability of the brain. This finding has implications for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease and our understanding of brain function more generally.
The research is led by Professor Ian Forsythe and is reported in the journal Neuron on 26th November.
Professor Forsythe, of the MRC Toxicology Unit, explains: "It is well known that nerve cells communicate via the synapse the site at which chemical messengers (neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine or glutamate) are packaged and then released under tight control to influence their neighbours.
"Nitric oxide is a chemical messenger which cannot be stored and can rapidly diffuse across cell membranes to act at remote sites (in contrast to conventional neurotransmitters which cannot pass across cell membranes)."
"Surprisingly, the whole population of neurons were affected, even those neurons which had no active synaptic inputs, so indicating that nitric oxide is a 'volume transmitter' passing information between cells without the need for a synapse. Such a function is ideal for tuning neuronal populations to global activity."
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/130992.php
And I strongly suspect that I wouldn't have been had the stamina to do all this research without regular supplements of both niacin, nicotinamide and nitric oxide.
Parkinson's protection without caffeine or nicotine
"Decaf coffee and nicotine-free tobacco aren't just for the health-conscious. Giving them to flies with a form of Parkinson's disease has revealed that although coffee and cigarettes protect the brain, caffeine and nicotine aren't responsible for the benefit.
If the compounds that put up this brain defence can be identified, they may offer a preventive Parkinson's treatment where none currently exists, says Leo Pallanck, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, whose team led the new study.
"We think that there's something else in coffee and tobacco that's really important," he says."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18814-parkinsons-protection-without-caffeine-or-nicotine.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
Yes.
Thank heavens for the internet.
Posted by: Rose on September 7, 2012 07:03 AM
Thank you Rose,
for this additional information.
Very interesting all of it.
Now in the last two paragraphs you cite decaf-coffee and nicotine free cigarettes having something that still makes them work for health. According to the article, they are still looking. What is your view of what that substance might be?
Posted by: Sepp on September 7, 2012 11:13 AM
Sepp
The only thing that I know to be in both roasted coffee and in cigarettes smoke is niacin.
"Nicotine is produced in the roots of tobacco by the linking of compounds derived from nicotinic acid and putrescine"
It's nasty stuff, as it would have to be to stop insects animals eating it's leaves.
Green Tobacco Sickness in Tobacco Harvesters -- Kentucky, 1992
"Green tobacco sickness (GTS) is an illness resulting from dermal exposure to dissolved nicotine from wet tobacco leaves; it is characterized by nausea, vomiting, weakness, and dizziness and sometimes fluctuations in blood pressure or heart rate (1-3)."
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00020119.htm
Murray E. Jarvik, 84, UCLA pharmacologist, nicotine patch inventor
"Murray was always asking, 'Why do people smoke?'" said Richard Olmstead, a UCLA associate researcher in psychiatry and a friend and collaborator of Jarvik's.
"I would say that Murray's greatest impact was advancing the proposition that nicotine was the key addictive component in tobacco.
In short, he was able to largely answer his question. Having done so, though, he kept at it, further generating support and caveats to the proposition. As the long-faded banner in his office read: 'Nothing is simple.'"
"Thinking back, Murray was always looking for simple answers he knew he would never find," Olmstead said.
In the 1990s, Jarvik, along with Jed Rose, then a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA and now the director of the Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research at Duke University, were curious about "green tobacco illness," a malady striking tobacco farmhands harvesting the crop in the South. That led to research on the potential positive implications of absorbing tobacco through the skin, which resulted in the creation of a transdermal patch that delivers nicotine directly into the body.
When the researchers could not get approval to run experiments on any subjects, Jarvik, in an article in UCLA Magazine, said they decided to test their idea on themselves.
"We put the tobacco on our skin and waited to see what would happen," Jarvik recalled.
"Our heart rates increased, adrenaline began pumping, all the things that happen to smokers." ??
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/obituary-murray-e-jarvik-85-ucla-50218.aspx
An easy mistake to make for a neversmoker after the nicotinic acid/niacin/tobacco link had been deliberately hidden, and as you can see, it appears to have been sending doctors and scientists off on the wrong track ever since.
Why would they even think to check?
I was only wondering what happened to nicotine when it burned.
Posted by: Rose on September 7, 2012 12:38 PM
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