The mechanical steps involved in smoking include carrying cigarettes,
lighting them, placing them between the lips, sucking on them, inhaling
the smoke, exhaling, holding the lighted cigarette, and repeating the
maneuver. A physical need that is satisfied by these steps is the
achievement of a blood level of nicotine and other substances. This is
somewhat that habituated smoker's body comes to sense a worthwhile goal.
Psychological needs that are satisfied by the steps involved in smoking
are very basic and infantile, including ingesting, sucking, grasping, and
repetitive hand to mouth activity.
That the psychological needs of smoking are of as great importance as the
chemical ones is amply illustrated by consistent observations on persons
who have recently tried to quit. They eat more and gain weight, "do not
know what to do" with their hands, and experience extreme psychological
discomfort manifested as irritably. While the loss of chemical
satisfaction contributed to this by unknown and indirect mechanisms, the
substitution of food for smoking substitutes the importance of the sucking
and ingestion behavior.
Many preparations have been devised to combat tobacco habits. These prior
efforts have generally been directed to the concurrent use of tobacco and
silver salts, sulfides, sulfur, thioglycols, lobeline, sedatives,
anticonvulsant drugs, or other substances causing nausea or ill feeling to
the end of building up to a psychological response to tobacco that make
the same undesirable. Not only have such preparations proved unpopular
because of the lack of desire on the part of the individual deliberately
to make himself ill to cure the habit, they have also proved ineffective
to many instances even when faithfully employed. It is well known that the
habit-formula and health-deterring factor in tobacco (Nicotiana Tabacum)
is the Nicotine (C10 H14 N2) which is a very toxic
substance, the lethal unit dose for an average adult is about 60 mg; one
cigarette delivers about 1 mg. of nicotine. Nicotine is a volatile oil,
inflammable, powerfully alkaline, with an acrid smell and a burning taste.
Once nicotine enters the blood stream, it has been shown to cross the
blood brain barrier and bind to receptors in the brain, resulting in the
release of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the central nervous system's
neurohumoral pathways.
One constituent of tobacco smoke: nicotine, is a stimulant to the central
nervous system. Nicotine is one of the most powerful psychoactive drugs
known, with addiction occurring when doses reach high levels. Smokers
inhale approximately one milligram per cigarette, which quickly enters the
bloodstream through the lungs, going straight to the brain. Here, it
stimulates the brain, speeding up communication between cells. But by the
time a cigarette is finished, the nicotine level in the blood begins to
plunge, causing the body to urgently signal its need for more. Smoking a
cigarette every half an hour or so keeps nicotine levels elevated, but the
smoker pays a devastating price.
Nicotine probably is the reason why many people find smoking pleasurable
and the reason many people become dependent on tobacco. Withdrawal from
nicotine brings about unpleasant sensation likened to withdrawal from any
drug. Nicotine produces widespread effects on both the central nervous
system and the cardiovascular and peripheral systems. Nicotine addiction
is established more rapidly than addiction of heroin. Almost any smoker
claims that smoking helps him or her to calm down, to work better and to
meet the daily stress with its apparent tranquilizing effect, but that is
proved to be an illusion. Smoking doses not make a smoker less irritable
or vulnerable to annoyance. Smoking a cigarette introduces nicotine into
the system via the soft tissues of the mouth as well as through the lungs.
The body reacts violently, since nicotine is a psychoactive drug. The
reaction causes a flow of adrenaline and other hormones, which bring us to
a high alert and gives us (briefly) increased energy in a crisis by
elevating our blood-sugar level. This causes a momentary "lift", it is
followed, however, by a too rapid movement of glucose out of the blood
after the "danger" is past, and the result is a feeling of fatigue.
Fatigue causes anxiety, self-pity, low grade dissatisfaction and general
discomfort, which, for a smoker is a signal to reach for the pickup in a
cigarette.
Consider the fact that this process is repeated twenty, thirty or forty
times a day and for however many years a person smoke; if we could see
inside our body, we will see a lot of action. In addition to glands
squirting adrenaline, the pancreas is busily dealing with the glycogen and
the blood pressure, which increase the heartbeat rate by at least 9 beats
per minute (around 1000 extra beats per day), and all that activity
apparently influences the levels of fats circulating in the bloodstream.
At the same time, the red blood cells are obstructed for their mission of
carrying oxygen to the heart and brain because of the carbon monoxide and
other gases in the cigarette smoke. In fact, "as much as 20% of the blood
pushed around by the heart of the smokers is not working so far as
carrying oxygen is concerned. Since the heart has the highest oxygen
requirement per unit weight of any tissue, any change in the supply of
oxygen could affect the heart first, and thereby increase the risk of an
attack for the smoker". Since nicotine is addictive, since the body
requires that a certain level must be maintained in the blood-stream, the
smoker becomes uncomfortable when he or she has gone beyond the normal
time for another dose. Usually he or she reacts by reaching automatically
for another cigarette. Switching to low-nicotine cigarette supply causes
problem smokers to smoke more; zero-nicotine cigarettes are usually
rejected.
Let's consider why people continue to smoke. They don't quit because
smoking gives them certain benefits. Many campaigners for the elimination
of cigarette smoking have not realized that people would lose these
benefits, as well as the health risks. Tobacco has significant effects on
behavior and psychological state. Recent research has shown that cigarette
smokers (and others who use tobacco) find that tobacco use makes it easier
to cope with over-stimulation like city noise and overcrowding. That's
because the nicotine in cigarette smoke is a stimulus barrier, a substance
that makes it easier for a person to function in an over-stimulating
environment. Human brain-wave activity can be measured by putting
electroencephalograph electrodes on a person's head. When a subject is
subjected to a sudden unexpected stimulus (like a loud noise), you find
out how much the brain responds to these stimuli. The brain of a person
who has used nicotine responds less to these distracting stimuli than the
brain of someone who doesn't smoke. In this way, the nicotine makes it
possible for some people to cope with the over-stimulation found in most
cites by reducing their brain's reactions to the extraneous stimulation.
While nicotine's effect on the neurotransmission of serotonin, and the
receptors of the presynaptic membrane are poorly understood; it is
believed that the abstinence from tobacco and nicotine results in the
re-up-take and accumulation of serotonin in these neurohumoral pathways,
that when the release of which is not stimulated by nicotine, results in
the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. The symptoms included restlessness,
irritability, anxiety, drowsiness, increasingly frequent waking from
sleep, impatience, confusion, impaired concentration, carbohydrate craving
and weight gain, impaired reaction time and a craving for tobacco; this
craving for tobacco is the overwhelming reason why so many individuals who
try to quit smoking fail to succeed. Pharmacological therapies are known
to help, those addicted to nicotine, but most of the therapies are
unsatisfactory because they have short term effect as well as numerous
undesirable side-effects.
Nicotine is readily absorbed by all of the body's tissues, including the
skin, the respiratory epithelium, and the mucous membranes of the mouth,
nose and intestines. The present invention Tobacco-Antioxidants
composition's absorption through the mouth, depends too on the pH level or
in effect, the acidity of the saliva present, with a more acidic saliva
changing nicotine molecules into a ionic form that is not well absorbed.
Similarly nicotine entering the acidic medium of the stomach cannot easily
move across cellular membranes, again reducing absorption, while in the
alkaline medium of the small intestine, the molecules reverts to soluble,
nonionic state, easily passing through the intestinal wall. From there
nicotine undergoes extensive metabolism in the liver, the resulting
products, or metabolites, of this process being primarily cotinine and
nicotine n-oxide. Consequently, only about 30% of nicotine from the
intestine reaches the bloodstream in a not metabolized form.
In contrast, inhalation of tobacco smoke allows a greater amount of active
nicotine to pass into the circulatory system. (As much as 90% of the
nicotine inhaled from a cigarette is absorbed into the bloodstream). From
the bloodstream the compound passes to the heart, which pumps a
significant portion of the nicotine directly to the brain, the transfer is
so rapid, in fact, that nicotine in tobacco smoke reaches the brain more
quickly than does nicotine injected directly into the bloodstream through
as vein.
After a brief rise, the brain's nicotine concentration quickly falls as the
compound is speedily redistributed to the other parts of the body. Some
researchers believe that the bolus of nicotine in each puff of tobacco
inhaled from a cigarette reinforces the nicotine habit in the brain,
probably by releasing a small amount of dopamine, so that hundreds of
puffs per day reinforces the addiction hundreds of times per day. Nicotine
readily crosses the placental barrier as well, resulting in fetal exposure
to the compound when women smoke during pregnancy. Additionally, nicotine
can pass into breast milk, albeit in very low levels. Possessing a
relatively short duration of action within the body, nicotine has a plasma
half-life of between 30 minutes and 2 hours (meaning that half of the
blood's nicotine levels disappear within this span of time). In
nicotine-dependent cigarette smokers, who typically smoke every 30 to 45
minutes, blood nicotine levels rise cumulatively during the day before
leveling off. Peak levels in the arteries, which deliver the drug to the
brain, often reach approximately 40 micro-grams per milliliter of blood.
Although most nicotine in the body is metabolized in the liver, the
compound is also eliminated through excretion in urine, passing into it
from the bloodstream according to changes in urinary acidity. Lowering of
the pH, that is, making the urine more acids, as happens in stressful
situations or through an increased intake of vitamin C, increases nicotine
excretion, decreasing the compound's levels more rapidly.
Since cotinine, nicotine's major metabolite, has a much longer half-life
than its parent compound, lasting from 10 to 40 hours, its presence in the
body is commonly used to determine whether an individual's smoking
cessation efforts have been successful.
As blood nicotine levels decline, the nicotine-dependent smoker begins to
experience sense of craving, this typically being a cue to reach for
another cigarette. Since inhaled nicotine is absorbed so rapidly, smokers
can adjust (titrate) their blood nicotine levels within a satisfying range
not only by controlling the timing and number of cigarettes consumed but
also by altering the way in which each cigarette is smoked, that is, the
duration of each puffs, the depth of smoke inhalation, and the length of
time that smoke is held in the lungs.
Nicotine may be tied to the onset of cardiovascular disease, based on the
ability of sharp increases in blood nicotine levels to encourage blood
clotting, inflation of blood lipid levels, and stimulation of a portion of
the accomplishes this last action by raising blood levels of
catecholamines, comprising adrenaline and similar compounds. Yet direct
evidence association low levels of nicotine with cardiovascular disease is
weak, and when nicotine is absorbed slowly, it does not appear to increase
cardiovascular risk or cause adverse cardiac effects, even in patients
with coronary artery disease.
During surveys conducted in industrialized nations, most participating
smokers expressed a desire to give up tobacco and in many cases, revealed
that they had tried to do so, with the first few attempts commonly ending
in relapse. This relapse can be traced at least in part to the nicotine
withdrawal syndrome, which exists when at least four of the following
signs occur within 24 hours of an abrupt cessation of a reduction in
nicotine use: (a) a dysphoric or depressed mood; (b) insomnia; (c)
irritability, frustration, or anger; (d) anxiety; (e) difficulty in
concentrating; (f) restlessness; (g) a decreased heart rate; and (h) an
increased appetite or weight gain.
Despite this litany of adverse effects, epidemiological studies also
indicate that smoking may afford some protection against the development
of both Parkinson's disease, caused by the death of certain dopamine
containing brain cells, and Alzheimer's disease. There is also some
evidence that smoking decreases the change of developing ulcerative
colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease.
On a more positive note, not necessarily speaking against tobacco and
according to my research for alternate use of tobacco in agriculture, I
have evaluated the potential of tobacco as a source of leaf protein and
use its protein for food plus as a safer alternative choice to smoking,
considering the yield by the hectare of leaf proteins can be at least four
times higher than that of seed proteins and that the proteins contained in
the amino acids are circa 9% Aspartic Acid, 5.2% threonine, 3.1% serine,
11.5% glutamic acid, 5.1% proline, 10.3% glycine, 9.4% alanine, 8% valine,
1.2% valine, 1.2% methionine, 4.5% isoleucine, 8.9% leucine, 4.4%
tyrosine, 4.1% phenylalanine, 6% lysine, 2.8% histidine, and 6.5arginine.
Leaves contain 0.6 to 0.9% alkaloids, including nicotine, nornicotine,
anabasine and anataline; roots also contain most of these alkaloids.
Leaves also contain the aromatic nicotianin (tobacco camphor).
By weight proteins are the major component of the dry material of a living
organism and they are among the most important functional components of
the living cells. Proteins are the building blocks of the body and are
required for the growth, repair and maintenance of cells, which are
constructed from proteins. Proteins are needed for the manufacture of
hormones, antibodies, enzymes and tissue. The major cause of poor
nutritional value is due to a low content or unavailability of one or more
of the indispensable amino acids.
More recent study of the smoking problem has led to the development of
Nicotine gums or patches, as anti-smoking aids. As a general practice that
alternative nicotine sources are only effective as anti-smoking aid when
an individual immediately stops smoking and substitutes the nicotine
source for the cigarette. The problem with nicotine substitution therapy
involves the administration of the psychoactive constituent of tobacco
indicates as a contributor to the diseases for which smoking is a risk
factor.
Administering just nicotine as a substitute of smoking have not been
successful because these methods do not recognize and address the
two-prong "addiction" of smoking. First, there are social and
psychological reasons for smoking that must be initially overcome.
Secondly, there is the more powerful psychological than pharmacological
reason (nicotine addiction) that must then be conquered. Both the social
and psychological causes of smoking, as well as the pharmacological
nicotine dependence must be addressed in sequence, if a truly successful
method of eliminating an individual's tobacco smoking habit and associated
nicotine dependence is to be provided.
Caffeine--The stimulant effects that are attributed to nicotine, including
those characterizing its addictive nature, are also attributed to
caffeine, hooked. One-half of the world's population, consumes caffeine in
tea, and another one third get their fix from coffee. Millions more find
daily doses in soft drinks. Caffeine's origin in soft drinks has a
botanical basis: caffeine is a component of the kola nut from which Coca
Cola was originally derived. However, modem beverages of many brands are
purposely spiked with the drug. Like nicotine, caffeine is found naturally
in plants, like tea, coffee, kola, nuts, and cacao beans (from which cocoa
and chocolate are made). In fact, it is even placed in the same general
chemical class as nicotine. But the similarities do not end there. The
table below compares the effects of nicotine with those of caffeine, the
similarity is self explanatory.
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