Nicotine 'interferes' with chemotherapy

The Age ^ | 3 April 2006

[Aussie Dasher]

Nicotine can prevent chemotherapy drugs such as taxol from killing lung cancer cells, research say, in a finding that may help explain why lung cancer is so difficult to treat in smokers.

The findings may also suggest even people who quit smoking but use nicotine supplements, such as patches or gum, may not be helped as much as they should be by cancer therapy, US researchers said.

"Our findings are in agreement with clinical studies showing that patients who continue to smoke have worse survival profiles than those who quit before treatment," the researchers wrote in a study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Srikumar Chellappan and colleagues at the H Lee Moffitt Cancer Centre and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, tested three standard lung cancer drugs: gemcitabine, cisplatin and taxol, on several different batches, called cell lines, of cells taken from lung cancer tumours.

Adding a small amount of nicotine, equivalent to what would be found in the blood of an average smoker, interfered with the drugs' action against the tumour cells, they reported in the study, which was also presented to a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Nicotine protected the cancer cells by increasing the activity of two genes called XIAP and survivin, Chellappan's team found. The genes stopped a process called apoptosis, a kind of cell suicide.

When the two genes were suppressed, the cells died as they should have, they said.

[Aussie Dasher]

Been off the smokes for almost a month, now!

[ozoneliar]

Been off the smokes for almost a month, now!

Congrats! Hope you can stay off.

[Aussie Dasher]

So do I!

[panaxanax]

How'd you do it?

[Stopislamnow]

one week and one day here.

one day at a time.

[Farmer Dean]

Way to go Aussie Dasher.Shortly you should begin to notice that your breathing is better,more stamina,better resistance to colds,etc.

[Aussie Dasher]

Sheer bloody mindedness...

[Maven]

Been off the smokes for almost a month, now!

Woohoo! Congratulations!

You do know you need what I call obnoxious stop-smoking software, so you can tell people down to the very second how long it's been since you've stopped. I use something called SilkQuit, which gives out information like this:

Nine months, four days, 3 hours, 55 minutes and 9 seconds. 8314 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,247.42. Life saved: 4 weeks, 20 hours, 50 minutes.

Yep, I quit, too last June 29th.

Now - go get that obnoxious software, okay?

Maven

[Aussie Dasher]

Bugger the software. I need sometghing that will stop me lighting up when I have a drink!

[Maven]

Bugger the software. I need sometghing that will stop me lighting up when I have a drink!

I guess that's where I had it easier - I don't drink! LOL!

Maven

[D-fendr]

Don't have the program for Mac OS. Gonna make it myself.

What's the calculation for "Life Saved" ?

[Vectorian]

An Aussie friend of mine suggested the best way to stop Australia smoking was to tell them it that giving up was a sport and us Poms were better at it! He reckoned the whole country would give up tomorrow! :D

[proudmilitarymrs]

Good for you!! I'm one week into my quit today!

[Maven]

Don't have the program for Mac OS. Gonna make it myself.

What's the calculation for "Life Saved" ?

I have no idea! I'm sure there's a Mac version of one program or another out there - just Google "quit smoking software," which is what I did to find it.

Maven

[D-fendr]

Did that. Extensive google searching as well as versiontracker.com.

No luck..

thanks for your reply and posts..

[George W. Bush]

Don't have the program for Mac OS.

There are a slew of countdown/timer widgets available for the Mac's Dashboard. You could just re-use the scap of Javascript/HTML from one of those.

...

Doh! I googled and found there was a widget for Tiger 10.4 already. It only shows how many days since you've quit, no hours or minutes. But that could easily be modified.

No Smoking v1.0 (download directly from Apple)

[D-fendr]

Thanks W.!

Would you believe I haven't upgraded to Tiger yet? I will someday soon and I'll get this and play with it.

For now, I made a little FileMaker app that gives me money saved, ciggies not smoked, months, days..

Don't have the formula to use for life saved though..

thanks for trouble very much..