Close X
Monday, December 2, 2024
ADVT 
Health

E-cigarettes may open addiction to marijuana, cocaine

Darpan News Desk IANS, 04 Sep, 2014 08:21 AM
    Assumed by many as a safe alternative to cigarette smoking, electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes as they are popularly called may, in fact, promote use and addiction to illicit drugs, says a study.
     
    E-cigarettes may function as a "gateway drug" - a drug that lowers the threshold for addiction to other substances such as marijuana and cocaine, the findings showed.
     
    "While e-cigarettes do eliminate some of the health effects associated with combustible tobacco, they are pure nicotine-delivery devices," said co-author Denise Kandel, professor from the Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) in the US.
     
    "Nicotine clearly acts as a gateway drug on the brain and this effect is likely to occur whether the exposure comes from smoking cigarettes, passive tobacco smoke or e-cigarettes," said co-author Eric Kandel, who is also a professor at CUMC.
     
    E-cigarettes have been touted as a tool to curtail the use of conventional cigarettes and reduce the harmful health effects of combustible tobacco.
     
    But in the light of the skyrocketing popularity of e-cigarettes, particularly among adolescents and young adults, the researchers said that more effective prevention programmes need to be developed for all products that contain nicotine.
     
    "Our findings provided a biologic basis for the sequence of drug use observed in people," Eric Kandel noted.
     
    "One drug alters the brain's circuitry in a way that enhances the effects of a subsequent drug," he added.
     
    The researchers reviewed Denise Kandel's earlier work on the gateway hypothesis and on the role of nicotine as a gateway drug, reported in a paper published in the journal Science in l975.
     
    The current study appeared online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

    MORE Health ARTICLES

    Decoded: How Ebola virus disables immune response

    Decoded: How Ebola virus disables immune response
    Researchers have revealed how Ebola virus blocks and disables the body's natural immune response - paving the way for developing a drug to treat...

    Decoded: How Ebola virus disables immune response

    HIV vaccine a step closer

    HIV vaccine a step closer
     Researchers have uncovered new properties of special HIV antibodies called "broadly neutralising antibodies" or BNAbs, a discovery that could shed...

    HIV vaccine a step closer

    Computer to help spinal cord injury victims walk

    Computer to help spinal cord injury victims walk
    For helping people with spinal cord injury walk better, researchers have made an artificial connection from the brain to the locomotion centre in the...

    Computer to help spinal cord injury victims walk

    How immune system triggers psychological disorders

    How immune system triggers psychological disorders
    People with high levels of "inflammatory marker" proteins released into the blood in response to infection are at greater risk of developing depression and psychosis, says a study....

    How immune system triggers psychological disorders

    'Love hormone' helps autistic kids

    'Love hormone' helps autistic kids
    Researchers from Stanford University have found that oxytocin has a tremendous effect on such kids' ability to function socially....

    'Love hormone' helps autistic kids

    Lead exposure can make you fat

    Lead exposure can make you fat
    Even at low levels, lead is associated with obesity in mice whose mothers were exposed to the chemical, researchers at University of Michigan have found....

    Lead exposure can make you fat