Cancer

Nicotine patches may have helped many to kick the butt, but these can be equally dangerous as smoking as nicotine itself is carcinogenic, a new study show infused products designed

To help people give up smoking may not be safe, the findings showed. Nicotine is one of 4,000 chemicals found in cigarette smoke. While many of these chemicals are recognised as carcinogens, nicotine has, until now, only been considered addictive rather than carcinogenic. Nicotine exposure causes thousands of mutations in a cell’s DNA and this could be a precursor to cancer.  ‘These results are important,’ Harold Garner from Virginia Bioinformatics Institute in the US was quoted as saying. ‘This is because for the first time they directly measured large numbers of genetic variations caused only by nicotine, showing that nicotine by itself can mutate the genome and initiate cancer,’ Garner added. Here are the some of the other smoking cessation techniques: Cold Turkey – The oldest and most successful method is going ‘cold turkey’ that is quitting smoking without taking any substitute for nicotine.  75% people who’ve quit smoking claim to have done so without the aid of any aid or supplement. Coupled with therapy and intervention cold turkey is supposed to be the best way to quit. There are various websites and helplines which help people quit without the aid of any medicines. Most replacement therapies look to chemically substitute the nicotine hit of smoking but it just means switching from one addiction to another. One of the champions of cold turkey was Allen Carr, a chain smoker who quit smoking and went on to write a book entitled The Easy Way to Quit Smoking which is the most popular book on quitting smoking in the world. Many people have quit smoking after reading his book and this list include celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, Richard Branson, Anthony Hopkins and closer home Mahesh Babu and Hrithik Roshan.  Allen Carr’s basic principle was despite overwhelming evidence which points out the hazards of smoking people don’t quit because they think of quitting as ‘giving in’ or giving up.  Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRT) – NRT looks to take care of nicotine craving by providing a substitute source without the harmful effects of tobacco. It works on the principle that though nicotine is the ‘addictive’ part of cigarettes the more dangerous ones are tar, carbon monoxide and other gases. There are various products under this Nicorette umbrella which look to aid cessation including – chewing gums, lozenges, nasal sprays, patches and inhalers. Some electronic cigarettes also have nicotine filters. Real world studies have shown that NRT’s aren’t as effective as pharmaceutical companies claim. In the real world, 95% who have taken OTC medication have relapsed. Other medical aid – Several other companies have come out with smoking cessation drugs that don’t look to replace nicotine. One such drug is Bupripion which is marketed as an anti-depressant, smoking cessation drug and anti-obesity pill. It works on the principle that smoking is a form of countering depression and an antidepressant can perform the same function. Another popular drug is Pfizer’s Varenicline which reduces cravings by making the effects of nicotine less pleasurable. There are various side-effects of these drugs. Varenicline is known to cause suicidal thoughts, depression, drowsiness, nausea and the USFDA even claimed that it can cause cardiovascular disease. Electronic cigarettes – An electronic cigarette is a device that mimics the entire smoking process by producing a mist which has the same sensation (sometimes the same flavour too) of smoking. Some of them have nicotine and some of them don’t. Inputs from IANS and http://www.thehealthsite.com/