Addiction Solution Source

Prenatal and adolescent exposure to nicotine has harmful effects on auditory and visual attention in adolescents.

Research has shown that carrying raw or shelled sunflower seeds are particularly good for people trying to wean themselves from cigarettes. Every time you feel the desire to smoke, it is suggested that you go through the process of breaking seeds open and popping them into your mouth to munch on until the desire subsides. There are also other excellent nutrients.

As a smoker, you are always on the brink of a serious condition because your body is acidic and is always struggling to be in balance. Think of a smoker as walking around "off-center", leaning to one side.

Your health depends on the acid-base equilibrium of the body. This should be done with food - not drugs, because drugs will just make your body more acidic.

When tobacco is smoked, nicotine is absorbed by the lungs and quickly moves into the bloodstream and then reaches the brain within 8 seconds! Nicotine also acts directly on the heart to change heart rate and blood pressure and also on the nerves that control respiration to change breathing patterns.

The main problem with smoking is that the main addicting chemical in cigarettes, nicotine, destroys three of the natural, “feel-good” brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. These three natural chemicals are of two types, excitatory and inhibitory. The excitatory neurotransmitters – catecholamines – pep us up. The inhibitory one – acetylcholine – relaxes us.

When your brain’s ability to make its natural nicotine-like substances (acetylcholine or catecholamines) is totally suppressed, you’re compelled to find the artificial chemical (nicotine) to fill those receptors in your brain. Something has to go in there to keep your mood even. The absence of anything to fill these receptors causes the unpleasant symptoms known as withdrawal. This is why nicotine is addictive.

So, the easiest way to quit smoking is to put the right supplements in the brain to get it chemically balanced and to get the neurotransmitters operating normally.

Drug abuse and brain disorders often co-exist. In some cases, mental diseases may precede addiction; in other cases, drug abuse may trigger or exacerbate mental disorders, particularly in individuals with specific vulnerabilities.

What are the medical consequences of drug addiction?

Individuals who suffer from addiction often have one or more accompanying medical issues, including lung and cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, and mental disorders. Imaging scans, chest x-rays, and blood tests show the damaging effects of drug abuse throughout the body. For example, tests show that smoking causes cancer of the mouth, throat, larynx, blood, lungs, stomach, pancreas, kidney, bladder, and cervix. In addition, some drugs of abuse, such as inhalants, are toxic to nerve cells and may damage or destroy them either in the brain or the peripheral nervous system.

What harmful consequences to others result from drug addiction?

This information was recently released from Duke University:

Smokers reported that consuming milk, water, fruits and vegetables worsened the taste of cigarettes, while consuming alcohol, coffee and meat enhanced their taste, according to the researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

The findings could lead to a “Quit Smoking Diet” or to development of a gum or lozenge that makes cigarettes less palatable, said lead study investigator Joseph McClernon, Ph.D., an assistant research professor of medical psychiatry at the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research.

“With a few modifications to their diet — consuming items that make cigarettes taste bad, such as a cold glass of milk, and avoiding items that make cigarettes taste good, like a pint of beer — smokers can make quitting a bit easier,” McClernon said.

The findings appear in the April 2007 issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research. The research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

This information about smokers cravings was recently released from Duke University:

Brain scans of smokers studied by the researchers revealed three specific regions deep within the brain that appear to control dependence on nicotine and craving for cigarettes. These regions play important roles in some of the key motivations for smoking: to calm down when stressed, to achieve pleasure and to help concentration.

“If you can’t calm down, can’t derive pleasure and can’t control yourself or concentrate, then it will be extremely difficult for you to break the habit,” said lead study investigator Jed E. Rose, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research. “These brain regions may explain why most people try to quit several times before they are successful.”

In this study, the researchers manipulated the levels of nicotine dependence and cigarette craving among 15 smokers and then scanned their brains using positron emission tomography, or PET scans, to see which areas of the brain were most active.

Three Regions of the Brain are Important for Smokers

Three specific regions of the brain demonstrated changes in activity when the smokers craved cigarettes versus when they did not.

One region that lights up, called the thalamus, is considered to be the key relay point for sensory information flowing into the brain. Some of the symptoms of withdrawal among people trying to quit stem from the inability to focus thoughts and the feeling of being overwhelmed, and could thus be explained by changes in this region, according to the researchers. The researchers found that changes in this region were most dramatic among those who said they smoked to calm down when under stress.

Since 1964, 28 Surgeon General’s reports on smoking and health have concluded that tobacco use is the single most avoidable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. In 1988, the Surgeon General concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco, such as cigars, pipe tobacco, and chewing tobacco, are addictive and that nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction. Nicotine provides an almost immediate “kick” because it causes a discharge of epinephrine from the adrenal cortex. This stimulates the central nervous system and endocrine glands, which causes a sudden release of glucose. Stimulation is then followed by depression and fatigue, leading the user to seek more nicotine.

Nicotine is absorbed readily from tobacco smoke in the lungs, and it does not matter whether the tobacco smoke is from cigarettes, cigars, or pipes. Nicotine also is absorbed readily when tobacco is chewed. With regular use of tobacco, levels of nicotine accumulate in the body during the day and persist overnight. Thus, daily smokers or chewers are exposed to the effects of nicotine for 24 hours each day. Adolescents who chew tobacco are more likely than nonusers to eventually become cigarette smokers.

An addict usually has poor nutrition and that is why we consider a great nutrition plan a vital part of quitting smoking.