What is the impact of nicotine on our health?
Tobacco and nicotine are two different things. The tobacco combusion is the one which is seriously harming our health. In vaping products, there is no combustion but there is nicotine, the last common item between vaping devices and cigarettes.
Some food also contains nicotine, such as tomatoes, eggplants or potatoes.
So what do we know about nicotine?
Appearantly nicotine wouldn’t be bad for our health. Actually, it might even be quite the opposite: the results of a study led by searchers from the American university Texas A & M have concluded that when ingested alone and without tobacco, nicotine could be some kind of « Fountain of Youth for the mind » and could help slow down the aging process. This discovery was made while searchers were working on nicotine’s potential neuroprotective agent capacity. The starting point of the study was that if nicotine can act as an appetite inhibitor, which has been proven in the past, it might also affect the brain in other ways.
Texas A & M scientists conducted some tests on mice, and here below are the parameters:
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the mice have been divided in three groups that received low, medium and high nicotine dosage in their water.
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by setting three different dosages, searchers wanted to recreate three different categories of smokers.
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a control group received water without nicotine.
Conclusions
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the groups that received low and medium nicotine dosage witnessed no significant decrease in their appetite, weight or change in their neuro transmitters.
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those who received the highest dosage of nicotine ate less, gained less weight and had an increased brain activity.
The scientists also monitored negative side effects such as increased excitement or anxiety. But their findings were inconclusive.
The Texas A&M searchers received lots of criticism after the publication of their report. A health professional even warned the scientists that they could unwillingly encourage tobacco use. The searchers insisted that this was not the case.
The team however acknowledges the fact that more studies are needed and plans to continue testing the effects of nicotine.
