Originally published February 16 2005
Smoking does not prevent Alzheimer's after all, new study says
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
For a short while, scientists thought that smoking might have one benefit, at least. A few initial studies indicated that nicotine in tobacco might push back the onset of Alzheimer's disease. Smokers' hopes were dashed recently, though, when a new study found that any benefits nicotine might have for preventing Alzheimer's are outweighed by other smoking factors that actually encourage the disease.
Chronic nicotine exposure increases tangles in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease -UCI researchers have determined that chronic nicotine exposure worsens some Alzheimer's-related brain abnormalities, contradicting the common belief that nicotine can actually be used to treat the disease.
In the latest online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers report that chronic nicotine exposure increases neurofibrillary tangles - the bundles of fibers that are one of the two neuropathological hallmarks of the disease, the other being clump-like plaques.
Alzheimer's disease is a slow, progressive disease and the most common cause of dementia among the elderly in the United States, affecting 4.5-5 million adults - 10 times more than those affected by Parkinson's disease.
The disease is marked by the accumulation of two distinct brain lesions - beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles - which accumulate in specific brain regions critical to learning and memory.
"In earlier work, we showed that plaques can induce tangles," said Salvatore Oddo, graduate student in the School of Biological Sciences' Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, and the first author of the paper.
The researchers found that chronic nicotine exposure increased the tangles while having no significant effect on the plaques.
"In contrast to previous reports that nicotine has some marginally positive effects, our latest findings suggest that chronic nicotine exposure may actually be detrimental, enhancing certain Alzheimer's disease brain pathologies," said Frank LaFerla, principal investigator of the research project, associate professor of neurobiology and behavior, and co-director of the UCI Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia.
Starting with mild memory problems and ending with severe brain damage, Alzheimer's usually begins after the age of 60, the risk increasing with age.
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