ELI5. why do ciggarettes make hiccups so much more aggressive?

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ELI5. why do ciggarettes make hiccups so much more aggressive?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

I smoked 30+ a day for around 10 years and I never experienced this. My hiccups were the same then as they are now (I gave up smoking around 15 years ago). Maybe its you?

Anonymous 0 Comments

I never experienced it as a smoker, but my vape sometimes causes me to hiccup. It’s really random so I’m not sure what actually causes it.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The mechanism of hiccups is still not fully understood. But for now it is thought to be caused by an irritation of the phrenic nerve which passes through your neck. Some hypothesize they nicotine especially in high concentration may irritate that nerve causing a hiccup. Cigarettes usually don’t have that high a nicotine content, as opposed to vapes, but if you’re already having a hiccup I can see how a lower nicotine concentration might make it worse. I mean nicotinic receptors are found in so many neurons in the body and they’re called so because nicotine can activate them, even though the native ligand that activates them in the body is acetylcholine but they’re termed so because in research they’d use nicotine to activate them and it works.

Edit: just to make you feel better, hiccups are an extremely common side effect for vaping (so you’re not alone). Although they came up with nicotine salts as opposed to normal nicotine and it actually pretty much completely removed that side effect. But even in lack of direct evidence this shows you that nicotine is a very likely culprit in your case.