I understand tobacco and chew and vapes aren’t good for you, because of all the other shit in there, but is nicotine itself as a chemical bad for you?
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It’s a vasoconstrictor. It makes your vessels shrink and that can lead to heart attack, stroke, kidney disease and many more.
I’m curious about this too. I’ve heard of people taking nicotine more as a stimulant and not because of addiction or a smoking habit. Does it actually increase brain plasticity? This is just something I’ve heard, not sure if it has any weight at all.
Nicotine is a neurotransmitter analog. For people suffering from alzheimers disease, sometimes smoking or taking some other form of nicotine has the side effect of suddenly but temporarily improving the function of their memory. This is believed to be due to the neurotransmitter effect of nicotine filling in for something their brain is deficient in. Part of the reason nicotine addiction can be so hard to break might be that your brain gets used to having nicotine play the role of being this source of neurotransmitters, and when you withdraw from heavy nicotine use, your brain hurts from not being used to having this neurotransmitter analog suddenly taken away.
You may be interested in this video on someone who thinks nicotine is a useful drug that is just being delivered in a very unhealthy manner most of the time:
# Freethink | [I believe nicotine is good | John Coogan for Heretics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EHE-hHg49k)
I’m not saying I agree with him, but his is a dissenting viewpoint on this topic that differs from conventional wisdom, so he’s worth hearing out.
Nicotine is still addictive, and if addiction is bad, that alone means that nicotine is at least not benign. That should also be considered.
I am a neuroscientist and I know a little bit about this. Nicotine effects (wait for it) nicotic receptors throughout the brain and body. Normally, we name receptors after endogenous (made inside the body naturally) neurotransmitters that bind to them… such as dopamine receptors or GABA receptors. In the case of these nicotine receptors, there is no such thing as endogenous nicotine. Instead, these receptors are actually available for the presence of a very important neurochemical transmitter called acetylcholine (ACh). ACh is wide spread throughout the brain and body (actually, for an important reason that is too long to go into here, it’s actually just choline, but it is readily converted into ACh for proper muscular function). ACh is also super important for memory formation and retention (or consolidation as it is better known).
The reason the receptors for ACh are called nicotinic is because they were discovered to be impacted by the use of nicotine. In essence, nicotine as a chemical is structurally similar and works well on the same receptors that are meant for memory formation and muscle movement. Because these systems are HEAVILY tied to the reward system and dopamine production, nicotine is powerfully addictive.
Does it work? Kind of… but not as well as you would probably hope. It is too fast acting to make any real contribution (again, too long to explain here but has to do with controlling motor function at the neuromuscular junction) and it is easy to overdo it to the point that the body starts making chemicals to depress you to attempt to counteract the effect, which is why cigarettes calm people down, despite being a stimulant.
Your are right in your thought process. Nicotine itself is not responsible for cancer causing effects of tobacco products, or lung diseases. It does however constrict your vessels when consumed as well as having a theoretical carcinogenic effect due to overstimulation of certain cells. Overall, without any preexisting conditions, it is relatively harmless
Nicotine is a neurotoxin (nerve poison) that is only lethal (deadly) in very high concentrations (amounts). Like with many poisons, it works stimulating (wakes you up) at low doses and there may be medical uses for it.
It is known to be highly addictive due to its neural activity (impact on the brain) and is a possible carcinogen (cause of cancer) of low strength. It is important to state that if you consume it by smoking cigarettes, everything else gives you cancer much much more quickly than the nicotine.
I have high blood pressure, and I take meds to help alleviate it. I’m also a smoker. The reaction of my healthcare providers when I smoked just before a doctor’s appointment vs. one where I deliberately avoided smoking a couple of hours beforehand was night and day. For the first, they wanted to put me in an ambulance and send me to the ER. Didn’t believe me when I said there was no chest pain. That’s *with* blood pressure medication. The second, it was just a boring, routine screening, with the typical low-key scolding that I should stop smoking.
Obviously, this is anecdotal, but at least for me it seems to put my blood pressure through the roof.
Edit: This space is reserved for the plethora of anecdotes I can share about all of the nastiness not related to OP’s pure question (nicotine, the chemical).
Nicotine is frightfully addictive, and also extremely easy to overdose and poison yourself with.
Nicotine is similar in many ways to neurotransmitters in the brain, and temporarily makes the brain’s work easier, so it’s easy to get addicted to it.
The difference between a “useful” dose and a fatal one is very small though, and it can be absorbed directly through the skin. In a lot of places the sale and/or possession of liquid Nicotine is illegal because of this toxicity.
I knew a guy who had a vape that used liquid Nicotine as a replacement for smoking. He said he had to smuggle it in from overseas (that may be an exxageration on his part, but he certainly couldnt get it locally), and he was extremely careful any time he handled the Nicotine vial.
I’d argue against vapes being harmful as all it is is vegetable glycerine, propylene glycol, nicotine and flavouring. I’d also argue against nicotine being ‘frighteningly’ addictive.
I smoked for decades and vaped for a decade. I eventually decided to move down through nicotine levels until I got to zero. None of the drops in level were noticeable to me even to zero. I vaped zero for 3 months. Nicotine well out of my system. I ran out of zero nicotine juice and decided now was as good a time as any to put away the vape for good……I was crawling the walls within 30 minutes as soon as tried to do anything where I would usually smoke/vape. ie. IMHO most of the addiction to smoking/vaping is not the nicotine but the psychological addiction to the hand & mouth actions of smoking/vaping. ie. The adult equivalent of the baby/toddler addicted to its soother/pacifier.
Andrew Huberman has a great episode on the “positive” effects of nicotine. He makes a great distinction between using it for its benefits and abusing it as an addictive substance. Anecdotically one of his friends who is a professor chews nicotine gum for a “pick me up”.
The episode is called: Huberman Lab – Nicotine’s effects on the Brain and Body.
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