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Nicotine Helpful In Treating Psychiatric Disorders February 22, 2000 The Financial Times Nicotine may be an addictive killer but it also has beneficial side effects, pharmaceutical researchers have discovered. Nicotine, divorced from tobacco, is showing promising results in treating people with several psychiatric disorders and could be the basis of a new generation of drugs, the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting heard yesterday. Researchers described small-scale clinical trials in which nicotine patches and gum improved the symptoms of children with Tourette's Syndrome (a combination of motor tics, irritability and bizarre swearing episodes) and adults with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Nicotine is addictive in smokers because they inhale periodic high doses. But Paul Sandberg of the University of South Florida said: "There is no addiction from the constant low doses that we give through nicotine patches to Tourette's Syndrome patients." Professor Sandberg said the patches significantly boosted the effects of conventional drugs such as haloperidol in controlling Tourette's Syndrome. Paul Newhouse at the University of Vermont has treated people with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases with nicotine injections, gum and patches. Parkinson's patients responded particularly well, with improvement in both cognitive and motor symptoms. The project started, he said, with the observation that "smokers have a reduced risk of developing Parkinson's disease even when you account for the negative effects of smoking. Nicotine acts on certain receptors in the brain that are lost in Parkinson's disease." But Professor Sandberg said it was too soon to recommend that people with the disease should treat themselves with patches.