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Hi folks: Just got back from an exhausting vacation in Northern California. When I got back, I found a package from a relative containing an article from a journal called "The Genesis Report/RX" (April 1996). The article, entitled "Nicotine's Good Side: Treating Brain Diseases" is too long to retype in its entirety but I have excerpted some of the more salient points. The relative is a bigwig at a Pharmaceutical firm and I believe that this journal is the standard industry journal. My personal comments are enclosed in brakets e.g., [this is an example of a personal comment]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NICOTINE'S GOOD SIDE: TREATING BRAIN DISEASES SUMMARY Nicotine - that notorious culprit linked to concer and heart disease - may have a redeeming quality. Small-scale clinical trials have found evidence that nicotine-based compounds, including the nicotine patches used to control smoking, may be effective in alleviating serious brain disorders such as Alzheimers and Parkinson's diseases and schizophrenia.................. Several preliminary studies presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco indicated that nicotine-based therapy can improve cognition in people with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and schizophrenia. The compounds studied were targeted nicotine analogs, the nicotine patches currently marketed for smoking cessation and formulations...... ....... ...Other researchers had previously found that smokers were much less likely to develop Parkinson's disease, which also indicated that nicotine has some protective effect on the nicotinic cholinergic receptors in the brain. According to several researchers, nicotine inserts itself into the snyapses between enurons and assumes a function similar to acetylcholine............ NICOTINE RAISES COGNITIVE SKILLS ........... A study by Paul Newhouse MD, director of the clinical neuroscience research unit in the department of psychiatry at the Unviersity of Vermont School of Medecine, involved six Alzheimer's disease patients who were given 6-hour infusions of the drub ABT-418 from Abbot Labs. The patients experienced a significant improvement in short-term recall, a substantial decrease in failure to recall information they had just learned and faster reaction times.......... He added that he is planning a trial sponsored by Japan Tobacco which has a large pharmaceutical division, in Alzheimer's patients using a nicotine patch.....With ABT-418, Newhouse explained, "We saw more improvement in new learning than in speed, whereas with (pure) nicotine [the nicotine patch] we see more improvement in speed than in learning, which may be reflecting a subtle difference in these two compound's activities" [Also makes me believe the patch may be appropriate for Parkinson's. See later discussion on differences between Alzheimer's and Parkinson's] Newhouse said correcting the dearth of nicotinic cholinergic receptors is important in treating both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. "We believe that those receptors are important for neurotransmitter regulation since they regulate the release of other neurotransmitters........ In an interview with the Genesis Report, Newhouse said that the nicotinc cholinergic receptors may also be useful in treating pain....." ............. ........A longitudinal study indicated that the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) ibuprofen, naproxen and indomethacin may help prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease..................[I'm not sure why this is mentioned in this article]. NICOTINE AND PARKINSON'S DISEASE: DIFFERENT COUNPUNDS NEEDED Arneric of Abbott Labs said he thinks that different nicotine compounds may have to be developed for other neurologic diseases. For example, Sibia Neurosciences Inc is developing compounds aimed specifically at Parkinson's diseases........ .................... The cognitive defects are also different in the two diseases. People with Alzheimer's disease lose memory, learning capacity and recognition ability. With Parkinson's disease, .... the deficit is related more to what one would thing of as alerness, focus and attention and of the speed of thought processes.......... However, a number of potential Parkinson's disease therapeutics in the final stages of clinical trials are expected to be marketed lon before any nicotine-based therapy for the disease is commercially available........ [Here are presented some potential Parkinson's tehrapeutics in the final stages of clinical trials] Tolcapone (Hoffman-La Roche): When patients with mild Parkinson's disease were withdrawn from tolcapone therapy, 61% suffered a significant deterioration in their conditions..... Primipexole (Pharmacia & Upjohn): Reduced the use of L-dopa in 25% of advanced Parkinson's disease patients...... Entacapne (Orion Pharma): Increase duration of motor response in L-dopa by 45 minutes....... Ropinirole (SmithKline Beecham): Improved motor function by between 24% and 34% in separate Phase III clinical trials. [The article goes on to discuss the fact that there seems to be no negative side effects from the nicotine patches and drugs. In fact, nicotine administered in this fashion may improve the outlook for heart disease and coronary thrombosis etc. There is no mention of nicotine's addictive nature.] [Smoke 'em if ya' got 'em] [Hope you found this interesting].