Nicotine's Appetite-Suppressing Power Could Be Used for Weight Loss

[xg4bx]

Smokers tend to be thinner than nonsmokers, and new research reveals the exact spot in the brain where nicotine's appetite-suppressing effects take hold. The findings could be harnessed and used as a weight-loss treatment, researchers say.

The researchers found a receptor on the surface of some brain cells that nicotine binds to, the study said. When they activated this receptor in mice, the mice ate less. The researchers hope the findings will carry over to humans.

A treatment based on these findings could allay smokers' common fear that quitting will bring weight gain, and could potentially augment the weight-loss efforts of non-smokers.

"What we've been able to find out is where in the brain [appetite suppression] happens, and find the receptors for nicotine in the brain that are responsible," said study author Marina Picciotto, a professor of psychiatry at Yale. "I'm hopeful that we'll be able to make medications based on these nicotine receptors that could be helpful in controlling appetite."

"What I was most impressed at here is the exactness with which they were able to find the nicotine receptor subunits that mattered," said Elissa Chesler, a neurogeneticist at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, who was not involved with the study. "If we can target that pathway...perhaps we can give people something that can control appetite that isn't associated with addiction to a harmful substance."



"It may be that things already being used for smoking cessation in humans could be repurposed," she said.

Nicotine's Appetite-Suppressing Power Could Be Used for Weight Loss - Yahoo! News



"perhaps we can give people something that can control appetite that isn't associated with addiction to a harmful substance.".......nicotine?



how about something that'll keep me awake without that harmful caffeine addiction?

 

[cconti]

Well, it certainly worked for me. The previous time I quit, in a matter of a month I had gained over 20lb. I was miserable.

This time, using the e-cigs, I did not gain a pound, so there is some merit to this article for sure.

 

[hairball]

cconti....I think that people gain weight when they try to quit is because you no longer have the hand to mouth. You put food in your hand instead. Ecigs resolve that because you have the hand to mouth addiction resolved. No need for food.

 

[Vocalek]

cconti....I think that people gain weight when they try to quit is because you no longer have the hand to mouth. You put food in your hand instead. Ecigs resolve that because you have the hand to mouth addiction resolved. No need for food.

There is a lot more to it than that. If hand-to-mouth (or "oral gratificaton" as they liked to call it at one time) were the only factor, then switching from smoking to sugar-free lollipops would completely stop any weight gain. It didn't work for Kojack, either.

I recall reading about 10 years ago that nicotine increases the metabolism to the tune of about 200 calories per day (CPD). So unless folks reduce their caloric intake, someone who becomes totally nicoitne abstinent would on average be gaining a pound every 17.5 days. That works out to 20+ pounds over the course of a year, which is closer to the real average than the 7 pounds they kept trying to tell us was the worst case scenario.

If you add in this latest information, that nicotine has an appetite suppression effect (which explains why every time I felt starved, if I lit up a cigarette I could go for another hour or two without eating), then you get a recipe for an obesity epidemic among the folks you convinced to give up all nicotine.

What irony. Charge them extra insurance premiums for being a smoker. They quit to save money and improve their health, and then a year later, jack up their rates because they have become overweight or obese.

This article had some interesting facts in it:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2640716/pdf/jnma00868-0038.pdf

A consistent finding is that approximately 80-85% of those who quit smoking will gain weight. Women tend to gain more weight than males (8- versus 6 lbs), and black women gain more weight (average 27 lbs) than white women. While approximately 13.4% ofwomen gain >28 lbs, the odds of a > or = 28.6 lb weight gain are three times higher for blacks than whites. Because of the high prevalence of obesity in blacks, a concern is that obese black smokers will be placed at an additional health risk if they gain even more weight when they quit smoking.

Here is a possible explanation for why they kept telling us, "You'll only gain 7 pounds" and so many of us gained much more than that. http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1997-07825-010

Abstract

Estimates of postcessation weight vary widely. This study determined the magnitude of weight gain in a cohort using point prevalence and continuous abstinence criteria for cessation. Participants were 196 volunteers who participated in a smoking cessation program and who either continuously smoked (n = 118), were continuously abstinent (n = 51), or who were point prevalence abstinent (n = 27) (i.e., quit at the 1-year follow-up visit but not at others). Continuously abstinent participants gained over 13 lbs. (5.90 kg) at 1 year, significantly more than continuously smoking (M = 2.4 lb.) and point prevalence abstinent participants (M = 6.7 lbs., or 3.04 kg). Results suggest that studies using point prevalence abstinence to estimate postcessation weight gain may be underestimating postcessation weight gain.

 

[Demarko]

I'd like to see, or make, a graph showing smoking cessation rates coupled with obesity rates in the US. I have a feeling they would line up very closely.

 

[UntamedRose]

So where can I buy 36mg??

 

[Thulium]

Nicotine's ability to suppress appetite and vaping's ability to gratify cravings for other stimulii (flavor, oral gratification, visual effects, social rituals) are what we use to self-sooth or self-medicate can be viewed as positive side effects...are all well and good, but we have to be careful to not encourage vendors to say anything that might be construed as a "health claim".

It is really sad that our government has been bought by the pharmaceutical companies, making it illegal for businesses to truthfully inform people about the health effects of foods, drugs, and now tobacco products without approval from the FDA....but that is where we are. The good news is that although Big Pharma may own the "copyright" to health claims, they are FAR from capturing a monopoly on the truth.

But maybe the answer is to acknowledge vaporizing as an alternate form of consumption that some people (most notably, inveterate smokers with repeated failed attempts to quit) may use as an alternative or replacement for more dangerous methods of consumption like compulsive smoking or eating, or chewing. Just because one choice might be more or less healthy than another, does that mean the healthier choices should have stricter rules applied to them?

 

[Ande]

It's funny- I've always been an active guy. Decent shape, maybe a little thicker now than I was in my 20s, but slim and reasonably fit.

Every other time I've quit smoking, though temporarily, I gained 5-15 pounds. And every time, it was a LOT easier to start smoking again than it was to get the weight off.

Since I started vaping and stopped smoking, I've lost 5 pounds.

This is not to be construed as a health claim relating to any product. ;-)

But I'm happy with it.

Ande

 

[Thulium]

That's not to say that ECF isn't a great place to talk about the positive (or negative?) effects vaping has made on your life...but vendors need to keep your excitement out of your marketing or risk the wrath of the FDA. Until e-cigs can be proven in clinical studies to be (un)safe and (in)effective for their intended purpose (to not threaten funding for tobacco control), the FDA won't approve health claims in marketing for products derived from tobacco. But there is no reason for marketing or sales restrictions for smoke-free products should be any more strict than other tobacco products.

 

[Vap0rJay]

.... making it illegal for businesses to truthfully inform people about the health effects of foods, drugs, and now tobacco products without approval from the FDA....but that is where we are. The good news is that although Big Pharma may own the "copyright" to health claims, they are FAR from capturing a monopoly on the truth.

"Truth is treason in the empire of lies." ~George Orwell (Also this quote is attributed to Ron Paul)
Just look at wikileaks

 

[dagnagan]

We see the obesity "epidemic" blamed on fast food, inactivity, the high-carb low-fat diet recommended for so many years, but no one ever mentions the fact the percentage of smokers in the population has been halved in the last thirty years. I've heard that there are now more former smokers in the U.S. than smokers.

I know many people who have gained 20 pounds or more after quitting, one that gained almost 100 pounds over three years, and a guy who gained and lost the same 80+ pounds three times in the twenty years after he quit. I can't help but think he'd have been better off smoking.

Those who insist on nicotine abstinence for ex-smokers should be confronted with data quantifing the weight gain that is likely to result for many people, as part of insisting that they prove that their e-cig bans, etc. will do no harm.