Posted on 10/29/2002 1:52:58 PM PST by Asmodeus
A naturally present chemical in tobacco may contribute to the onset of diabetes, cancer, aging and Alzheimer's, two scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla have found. p
The chemical, called nornicotine, "cooks" the body's proteins, triggering the same reaction that turns burned sugar brown and causes food to spoil.
"Nornicotine permanently and irreversibly modifies proteins, which can affect their overall function," said Scripps biological chemist Kim D. Janda.
Janda and Scripps researcher Tobin J. Dickerson have published their study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper appeared online yesterday and will be in print later this year.
Nornicotine also was found to react with prescription steroids, such as cortisone and prednisone, potentially making them more toxic, Janda and Dickerson found.
In their study, titled "A previously undescribed chemical link between smoking and metabolic disease," the scientists found that nornicotine attaches itself permanently to steroids and certain amino acids on the surface of proteins.
Amino acids are the chemical building blocks of proteins. Proteins, encoded by DNA, form the key structural elements in cells and are responsible for all the cell's activities.
Once nornicotine modifies these steroids and proteins, the new molecules interact with other chemicals in the body and create new compounds. Among them are a variety of compounds known as advanced glycation endproducts, which have been implicated in numerous diseases including diabetes, cancer, atherosclerosis and Alzheimer's.
"These advanced glycation endproducts are not supposed to be (present in your body) naturally," said Dickerson. "Your body is not prepared for them."
Janda and Dickerson, testing the blood of 20 smokers and nonsmokers, found that the smokers had higher levels of proteins that had been modified by nornicotine than nonsmokers. The smokers also had higher levels of the advanced glycation endproducts.
Nornicotine, unlike nicotine, persists in the bloodstream, suggesting that the chemical may contribute to tobacco addiction, Janda and Dickerson said.
The chemical nornicotine is present in all tobacco products, including cigarettes and chewing tobacco, and in nicotine gum and patches.
"It's been thought of as a little bystander," Janda said, adding that he plans to study nornicotine in nicotine gum and patches.
Their study was supported by the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute.
I read a study that said the sun did the same thing.
Maybe the Nico-Nazis paid for this study, too.
I'd like to know who paid for the study before taking it as fact.
I don't even smoke. But usually, these studies are paid for by people with an agenda. The results could be fabricated for profit.
I wouldn't consider this breaking news. Possible propaganda, yes.
The study was supported by the Skaggs Institute, which was funded by a $100M gift from philanthropists Samuel and Aline Skaggs. You can read all about it here:
http://garbanzo.scripps.edu/nmrgrp/skaggs/utrib.skaggs.2.html
You're right, those "Nico-Nazis" do have an agenda. It's saving human lives. Pretty sinister stuff. Unlike those nice people who made millions by telling us for decades that tobacco was safe, and who then told us that the evidence re the health risks of tobacco was ambiguous (when they knew that to be untrue), and who are even now convincing smokers that the same smoke that causes cancer in a smoker's lungs is absolutely safe when it enters the lungs of a non-smoker. Now, those guys you can trust -- no agenda there, and no profit motive.
;^?
;^?
Not exactly a broad sampling, eh? It doesn't mention the age or the physical condition the people... their environment....whatever. Where they truck drivers? Coal miners? What types of medications and pollution have they been exposed to in their lifetime? This is tripe.
Wow, a comprehensive study like this erases all doubt in the public's mind.
I quit!
Not.
These people are ate up with this $hit. I went to a neurosurgeon the other day for my back. First time I had been to this doctor, also the last. I had been waiting for about 20 minutes in the examination room. The doctor opened the door and stood in the doorway to talk to me. He never sat down and never examined me in any way. He wore a bandana around his head like a pirate. This is true. The first words out of his mouth were asking me , if I was a smoker. When I answered yes, he told me I had to quit or he would not be my doctor. I nodded. He ordered a MRI for me and charged me $278.00. I had the MRI done, but will not go back to the A-hole for his diagnosis. This is why I say these people are really ate up. Not only is he ate up, he is also a thief.
No, Ditter. The smokers will believe the study - just not the spin put on it. Typically, smokers know far more about the subject (science and politics) than non-smokers do. So, when anti-smoking nazis like Bloomberg and special interest groups like pharmaceutical companies masquerading as "research institutes" quote "science" to back them up, we know enough to be plenty skeptical.
So, let's look at this study and its results.
The main problem identified here is supposedly the "advanced glycation endproducts" or AGE's.
Now, glycation is the non-enzymatic glycosylation of proteins, nucleotides and lipids by saccharide derivatives. But, you need to realise that glycation is an unavoidable aspect of physiological metabolism (though minor in most healthy people). Even "breathairians" glycate all the time!!
Glycation of proteins leads to covalent crosslinking and abnormal structural stabilization of extracellular matrix proteins, and recognition by specific receptors ("AGE receptors") and consequent cell activation.
The theory (and I stress the word theory) is that glycation-mediated protein crosslinking and cell activation in cell dysfunction is associated with the advent of certain diseases, such as diabetes, vascular disease, Alzheimer's, cancer and aging.
Now, normally AGE's are cleared through the kidneys as a normal part of the body's metabolism. It is only when the body's renal functions start to deteriorate (with age or disease) or when the AGE levels are too high for the kidneys to efficiently clear them that theoretical problems potentially arise in some people.
This press release is high on spin and low on details.
For example, there are numerous types of AGE's. It does not state which AGE's we are talking about here. In all cases, the "dose is the poison" and even too much water can kill you. This press release does not include any information on the rate at which AGE's in smokers' blood is elevated above normal. That is, are AGE levels in smokers' systems sufficiently elevated that the kidneys cannot clear them and, if so, are the levels sufficiently elevated to cause disease?
Which, of course, begs the question as to what level of AGE's causes disease? How do AGE's in smokers' blood compare with, say, a diabetic, or someone with cancer, or Alzheimer's?
Answer: they don't know, because they didn't look for that. All they could say was that smokers had higher levels of nicotine in their blood, therefore higher levels of nornicotine, and seeing as the body breaks down nornicotine by glycation, smokers had elevated levels of AGE's in their bodies - genius! Give that man a grant!
To throw even more cold water on this "study", one of the authors is a mere PhD student, who makes an incredibly stupid statement in the Scripps Institute's press release that:-
"These advanced glycation endproducts are not supposed to be [present in your body] naturally," says Tobin Dickerson, a Ph.D. student in TSRI's Kellogg School of Science and Technology.
As I mentioned above, AGE's are most certainly supposed to be present in your body naturally - the only people who don't have them are those who have been cremated!
So, these are some of the reasons why smokers on FR are so hardcore - no doubt this "study" will be added to the "weight of evidence" against tobacco, when in fact it is no evidence at all!!
And this is our problem. Smokers on FR will not claim that smoking is risk or harm free (active smoking, that is - don't get me started on second-hand smoke). However, the mass hysteria generated by garbage studies like this one has been used to harass us, steal from us, banish us and generally discriminate against us in every imaginable way.
All this time, effort and money spent to demonise us has most certainly hardened us and turned us into cynics. As any psychologist could have told you, our response to this abuse is as natural as glycation!
Glycation contributes to stiff organs, veins, eye conditions and wrinkled skin. It is a natural process in aging. One of the chief AGEs culprits is sugar, esp. the "natural" fructose one found in fruit! Of course, I still eat fruits and avoid cigarettes. And I also take various supplements to inhibit (and perhaps reverse) AGEs, (with the amino acid l-carnosine being one of the important supplements).
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