3 replies to this topic

[Leprikun]

I've been using swedish snus for about 2,5 years now, beginning when I was around 17 and a half. I was experiencing slight nervousness in social situations as well as mild depression, and this substance had a massive effect on these issues; suddenly I was the main social contributor, cracked jokes, was relaxed and had great times. So I recklessly amped up the usage, going through 3-4 boxes a week.

 

I am not very well educated on the topic of brain health and nootropics, but as far as I know, it does seem like long term usage of tobacco can impair one's cognitive abilities. I was wondering if any of you could make an educated guess on  how severe such damage may be? And if brain damage is the case, what can I do to best reverse it?

 

I also know that nicotine itself is a potent short term cognitive enhancer. Since I basically used all the time in my last years of highschool, is it likely that this has affected my academic performance to a large degree? Meaning that, if I quit, I may be forced to start using other nootropics in order to keep up with my studies? Although I have nothing against potentially start using nootropics, I don't like the idea of not standing a chance getting my major unless I am using them...

[gamesguru]

I really suspect nicotine is a nootropic, even long-term.  If it had a longer half life, I might be hitting a vaporizer atm.

Not to say it doesn't cause emotional or stress problems.  Ever notice nicotine addicts are more edgy or stressed?   Seems a striking coincidence.

http://www.longecity...amage-recovery/

 

As for during withdrawal, yes, you can expect moodiness and inattentiveness.  Withdrawal effects could take 100 days to totally taper off, but after this, very unlikely you'll have any persisting deficient.  Hopefully due to nicotine, you are even sharper and smarter than before, if my suspicion is correct.

 

Possibly there are desensitized autoreceptors of D₁/D₂ and nAChRs.  These could become stuck and need dopamine antagonist, you can find naturally D₁/D₂. It might be worth a try: exercise releases anandamine/2-AG, which affect either α4β2, α7, or both [look into it].

Also sensitized VTA D₅ pathways^[1], which would be reversed, opposed, or dampened on withdrawal.

 

There are a few areas which appear to sustain permanent damage, but this probably causes problems more related to emotional dysregulation and anxiety than strict clinical depression or anti-cognition:

Nicotine produces selective degeneration in the medial habenula and fasciculus retroflexus.
Nicotine's neurotoxic properties in rats were investigated by administering (-)-nicotine tartrate for 5 days either continuously in doses of 5.01, 5.72, 6.44, 7.13, 20.41 and 43.1 mg/kg/day via osmotic minipump or intermittently at 11.32 mg/kg/day via one daily subcutaneous injection. As assessed by silver staining, neurotoxicity was seen almost exclusively in the axons of the medial habenula and its output tract, the fasciculus retroflexus, in all treatment groups except the lowest dose. Within the habenula, the damage was noted in the ventral-medial-most portion of the nucleus which is thought to be dense with the alpha 4 beta 2 and/or alpha 3 beta 4 receptor subtypes. Past research has shown the medial habenula to be highly sensitive to the effects of nicotine, and these findings, in conjunction with related research using dopaminergic stimulants, indicate that the habenula may be a weak link in the neurotoxicity seen following stimulant drugs of abuse.

 

Russell had problems with depression, perhaps made worse by tobacco.  He didn't display much anxiety.  I have only smoked tobacco once, so not a chronic subject, but definitely then it was anxiogenic for me.

I have frequently experienced myself the mood in which I felt that all is vanity; I have emerged from it not by means of any philosophy, but owing to some imperative necessity of action.
If your child is ill, you may be unhappy, but you will not feel that all is vanity; you will feel that the restoring of the child to health is a matter to be attended to regardless of the question whether there is ultimate value in human life or not. A rich man may, and often does, feel that all is vanity, but if he should happen to lose his money, he would feel that his next meal was by no means vanity.

[Leprikun]

Thanks for the reply!

 

If I understood you correctly, you believe that if I were to quit the use of snus, I would actually have gained cognitive benefits from it? At least after the withdrawal symptoms are gone? If that is the case, interesting! But what do you draw from a study like this?:  http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/17004938

 

What might be worth to mention is that with use of non-smoking tobacco, you're not exposed to carbon monoxide, and perhaps other forms of chemicals formed due to combustion. I don't know how much damage carbon monoxide is responsible for in smokers, but some of the damage propably comes from that chemical.

[gamesguru]

That's my guess: good for cognition, bad for mood.  Even long-term.

I can't say it's totally healthy, smoked especially.  Snuff is dredged in other chemicals and flavoring agents (probably this mostly affects oral health, oral cancer etc, and doesn't get into the blood or brain too much).  Snus is probably healthiest, least additives, closest to the way nature intended.

 

Still it will have radioactives, due to farming techniques:

RADIUM-226 AND POLONIUM-210 IN LEAF TOBACCO AND TOBACCO SOIL.
Contents of radium-226 and polonium-210 in leaf tobacco and tobacco-growing soils vary with the source. The differences may result from production locality, culture, and curing. The polonium seems to be not entirely derived from the radium; plants probably take it up from the soil or air.

 

I accessed one study suggesting an association between adolescent cognitive dysfunction and smokeless tobacco.  But again, this is the stuff with lots of additives.  And generally, no offense, but tobacco smokers tend to care less about their overall health, when malnutrition contributes to cognitive dysfunction.  So you have to control for these factors across the population sample, if you want a true estimate.

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The good news is you're missing out on pyrolytics by chewing:

Study on tobacco components involved in the pyrolytic generation of selected smoke constituents.
The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of various tobacco components to the generation of smoke constituents using a tobacco pyrolysis model. We analyzed the amounts of primary tobacco components (sugars, protein, polyphenols, alkaloids, organic acids, inorganics etc.) in flue-cured and burley tobacco leaves. Each of the components was added to the tobacco leaves at the 0.5-fold and 1.0-fold amount naturally present in the leaves. The treated tobacco samples were pyrolyzed at 800 degrees C in a nitrogen atmosphere with an infrared image furnace, and the selected smoke constituents (benzo[a]pyrene, hydrogen cyanide, carbonyl compounds, aromatic amines, volatile organic compounds and phenolics) were quantitatively analyzed by several methods, including high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The contribution of each tobacco component to the generation of selected smoke constituents was estimated from a regression line determined by the three yields (no addition, 0.5-fold addition, and 1.0-fold addition). The results of this study can provide useful and comprehensive information on the relationship between tobacco components and selected smoke constituents during pyrolysis.

 

It's really a mess with how many additives they put in.  Within the last 5 years they added one just to stop it from burning in case you forget and leave it sitting.  Not sure this was necessary.

Something as simple as adding sugar can cause an increased production of chemicals in smoke:

Chemical-analytical studies of the mainstream smoke of research cigarettes with various sugar application levels revealed that most of the smoke constituents determined did not show any sugar-related changes in yields (per mg nicotine), while ten constituents were found to either increase (formaldehyde, acrolein, 2-butanone, isoprene, benzene, toluene, benzo[k]fluoranthene)

 

There's a whole book on pyrolytic compounds in tobacco smoke, basically my suspicion is these are to blame for the majority of cognitive dysfunction observed in your study, and generally in smokers.  It plays an undeniable role in Cannabis too; its smoke has 118 carcinogens, its vapor just 2^[1].  And keep in mind that not all pyrolytics are carcinogenic, so this figure of 118 chemicals represents just the tip of the iceberg.  Cheers to the vape or edibles.