Posted on 06/12/2011 12:02:11 AM PDT by neverdem
Craving an afternoon snack? Take a drag on a cigarette, and your hunger will likely disappear. Smoking is the number one cause of preventable deaths in the Unites States and other developed countries, causing lung cancer, heart disease, and chronic bronchitis. But smokers are, on average, skinnier than nonsmokers. New research reveals how nicotine, the active ingredient in cigarettes, works in the brain to suppress smokers' appetites. The finding also pinpoints a new drug target for nicotine withdrawal—and weight loss.
The nicotine receptor in the brain has 15 subunits; they can combine in a multitude of ways to form different receptors with different jobs. Nicotine can bind to each combination and spur a cascade of distinct events; some lead to the addictive properties of cigarettes, others to an increase in blood pressure or a feeling of relaxation. It's long been known that nicotine causes a slump in appetite, and scientists suspected that this worked through receptors associated with reward and behavior reinforcement. After all, the brain considers both cigarettes and food to be rewards. But the new finding suggests that appetite has its own pathway.
Behavioral neuroscientist Marina Picciotto of Yale University set out to study whether activating one particular nicotine receptor, dubbed α3β4, had antidepressant effects on mice. But as postdoctoral researcher Yann Mineur was caring for the mice, which had received drugs engineered to stimulate only α3β4 receptors, he noticed a side effect: the mice were eating less.
"Before this study, we really didn't think that this type of receptor would have such a big role in the brain in food intake," Picciotto says. She and Mineur went on to show that nicotine does, in fact, bind to α3β4 receptors, which then send a signal throughout the rest of the brain, signaling satiety. It's indistinguishable from the signal the brain propagates after eating a large meal. Mice that received the drug binding to the α3β4 receptor ate half the amount of food as untreated mice in the 2 hours following administration of the drug. Their body fat dropped 15% to 20% over 30 days, the team reports online today in Science.
Since the weight gain that comes with stopping smoking is often one deterrent for smokers to quit, Picciotto suggests that the new pathway could be targeted by pharmaceuticals to suppress appetite during the initial stages of smoking cessation. In addition, such a drug could have wider reach as an appetite suppressant to aid in weight loss, without the health hazards tied to cigarette smoke.
Neil Grunberg, a behavioral neuroscientist at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, was the first to prove, through rat studies in 1982, that nicotine causes a decrease in appetite. He says the new study is a step forward in understanding the phenomenon he first observed.
"Most people had accepted that the decrease in appetite was caused through a dopamine-reward pathway and left it at that," Grunberg says. "So I think the most important contribution of this paper is to prove that there is another whole pathway that nicotine is working through."
Grunberg notes, however, that the study looks only at male mice. In his previous work, he has found differences in the effects of nicotine on weight between males and females. Females, he says, experience larger weight loss when they start smoking and a larger weight gain if they quit. Whether this means nicotine is working through an additional, hormone-regulated pathway in the female brain is yet to be determined.
Picciotto says her group is repeating the experiments on female mice. "We're also still trying to get back to that original question we had," she says: "Does this also have antidepressant actions?"
Not any more! Got in one train wreck too many.
Gene, trust him when he says that. I've seen this guy around here before. He IS at 'wit's end' -- literally.
they said Tricking, not Removing
Come on, when it comes to food, eat classic French.
Best ways to eat vegetables, packed with taste, minimal nutrition and flavor lost in preparation. Decent meat portions, can use low cost cuts of meat and braise them - same thing, more flavor, more nutrition. Sauces are not nearly as bad a people think - they make the meal. Soups !
Portions are automatically smaller because they are flavorful and satisfying.
They literally wrote the book on food.
And... back in the day - people here in America used many of the basic techniques and approaches to food !!!
We’ve just lost it all cuz we’re eating at junky chain restaurants and buying stuff in a box instead of raw ingredients. Many times grandma was the last in her line to cook anything real. When she says “stock” she’s not talking about shares.
Anyone can do it - I’m an idiot and I can make a decent meal in 20 minutes.
Nothing better, it works. Cuz you’re completely satisfied with only a reasonable amount of calories.
Have a cigar/smoke now and then to top it off.
Virtually limitless variation, easy once you get the hang of it.
You’ll get to your “right” weight (not anorexic) and be overflowing with ENERGY, cuz yer eatin’ right !
Just do a little strenuous exercise that makes your muscles sore now and then and your fat burning machine will get turned back on. Give it a go, it’s a whole new world.
Jacques Pepin’s fast food series shows you things that are real easy just to ease into the idea and get started and get some success.
Then find the cookbook La Bonne Cuisine. It explains a bit about the “restaurant” way of preparing, but basically explains things from the point of view of a home cook. Written by a home cook. Gives you the virtually every technique, i.e., knife, what pans to use and why (please stainless or cast iron cooking surfaces IYKWGFY), different cooking processes. It’s like a cooking course that you can just work your way through and use as a reference. It’s detailed so just expect to take your time (years) and have fun.
God put all the delicious and nutritous food all around us - we just have to get up and get it.
IMHO.
Try the eCig. There IS a learning curve with them, but I love them. My shortness of breath quit stopped in less than a week. I am not trying to quit smoking, just make it healthier - but if your intent is to quit, you can order ejuice in decreasing amounts of nicotine until you are “vaping” 0% nicotine. At that point, you may just like the habit, or stop altogether. But do try them, just remember that you will likely have to find the equipment best suited to you.
My recommendation, a 510 Tank system. The regular tanks are easy to fill and maintain. FYI, I have not gained weight using the eCig.
NOOOO!! Don't suggest that! It scares me too much after 10+ years of complete smoke-freeosity!
But it is heartening there is an option for people to get off physical flame-invoked cigs. Just as technology have us Metformin for diabetes, there is now a possible place to for for cig smokers where they can stop killing themselves.
>>Gene, trust him when he says that. I’ve seen this guy around here before. He IS at ‘wit’s end’ — literally. <<
That was the end point in the original text-based ADVENTURE game!
>>Have a cigar/smoke now and then to top it off.<<
That part is the problem.
Trust me, for a regular smoker, a single PUFF, much less an entire cigarette, is the path back to smoking.
If I sound like an AA person, it is because I am THAT afraid of going back to smoking. It took 30 years to get hooked and I have been off them over 10. I can’t take the chance — nor can most “ex-”smokers (we are all smokers — we just won’t do it now)
About this nicotine receptor controlling satiety, dubbed α3β4, I think not. Dopamine pathways were the consensus, IMHO.
Not required... I know how cigarette smoking can be from others I’ve seen who need one to get out of bed !
Smoking is an optional part of that whole rant - to each their own.
I think you should consider E-cigarettes. Such do not produce the toxins from the burning of tobacco. Such toxins are the primary source of the cancer producing and arterial damaging effects associated with the smoking of tobacco. The nicotine will suppress appetite and encourage weight loss.
I too have plumped out after years of being cigarette free. Last summer I lost thirty pounds and would wake up in the middle of the night with hunger induced anxiety attacks that would keep me awake all night. The picture of the middle of the night raids on the refrigerator are understandable after what I went through. After all that torment, I slowly regained the weight. I am thinking of trying E-cigarettes myself after reading the findings on nicotine and appetite.
If someone asks if you smoke, you can say that what you do is not smoking, it is “vapeing” because with an E-cigarette, you are inhaling nicotine delivered by water vapor.
True, the microbiology has zeroed in on a mechanism. Perhaps this could give rise to a new kind of diet pill that doesn’t carry the other ill effects of nicotine.
I meant it was common knowledge that nicotine cut appetite.
Vaping? To vape? Vapidity?
I had a sister who was a heavy smoker and weighed 500 pounds 5’4” tall, she passed away last summer at 38 years old. four children and a husband left behind. She did it to herself. Drinking diet soda, eating tons of food and smoking her self to death.
I'm not sure that it is the nicotine that keeps the weight off - it hasn't for me.
5’ 3”/100 lbs.
I eat to live, not the other way around.
:)
Thanks to the e-cig, I haven’t smoked since 12/9/09.
I won’t talk about the weight thing...
If a girl starts smoking at age 16 and smokes 1 pack per day she until she is 40 she will have 400% more wrinkles than a non-smoker!
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