matte. 2005 Dec 21. Nicotine, the bad guy?. <http://neurobiology.pharyngula.org/nicotine_the_bad_guy1/>. Accessed 2006 May 07.

Posted on Neurobiology on Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Nicotine, the bad guy?

I just got off the phone with my brother. He is a biology major at St. John’s so I trust him more or less on what he says. He was saying he just read a paper on nicotine. This is interesting in two ways; one the “Health Impact Fee” was just declared unconstitutional and more personally, I am a smoker. Before anyone jumps all over me, I know smoking is bad and it causes an enormous strain on the health care system. But is it all bad?
The paper my brother mentioned has to do with memory and cognition of smokers. It stated that after cessation the ability to recall information and to perform cognitive tasks was decreased. The use of nicotine replacement patches which deliver a constant dosage to the user is usually only recommended for no longer than six months. Well this paper showed that even after use of the patch, the subjects did not perform as well. This is over a half a year after the last cancerous inhalation. I have some papers on the genetics behind smoking and addictions in general. Basically some people are predisposed to certain addictions. I’m sure environment plays a role also. I didn’t start smoking until I was 22 and was living in Rome where everyone seems to smoke. But what really gets to me is that some people seem to think there is only one side to smoking, the bad side. So if anyone runs across this paper I would like to read it, my brother can’t remember where he read it. In the meantime I’m in the middle of finals and will probably go take a cigarette break now.

1. Well to every side there is a negative and a positive side, it is normally the bad side that sticks with us.

   Have a look at this article it is similar to waht you are talking about, though it is older http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20031012195753data_trunc_sys.shtml

   #: Posted by  on  12/21  at  01:08 PM