American studies in recent years have shown that 84 percent of smokers who consume more than a pack per day fail to cut back on their cigarettes. Even the surgical removal of the swollen larynx does not stop 40 percent of the hardest captives of nicotine.
Few people know that the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, was a heavy smoker. He regularly smoked up to 20 cigars a day and … complained of heart. When doctors demanded to urgently quit smoking, thirty-seven-year-old Freud withstood a few weeks. Thirty years later, he finished smoking before being diagnosed with cancer of the palate. Having undergone surgery, with a denture in his mouth, he now experienced pain when eating, talking and ill-fated smoking.
In the end, poor Freud used a clothespin to gouge out a prosthesis in order to light a cigar. “I have no intention of giving up this source of pleasure for the rest of my life,” wrote the grateful psychoanalyst, having received a gift from friends - a box of good cigars. He died in his ninth decade.
It has long been noted that attempts to intimidate heavy smokers with dire consequences for their health are thankless. Iron arguments break like brittle glass. You can say as much as you like that cigarette smoke contains about 50 carcinogenic components, including the well-known formaldehyde and dioxin.
And also that, as a result of many years of smoking, the walls of blood vessels lose their elasticity and, in the end, such a terrible phenomenon as obliteration - overgrowth occurs.
Damage to the vessels of the legs is a "professional" disease of smokers. Even drugs affect this category of the population differently. Smoking stimulates the metabolic process, in a smoker's body, the transformation of medications occurs much faster than in a non-smoker.
To cure a bronchopulmonary infection, for example, a doctor must prescribe to such a patient a 1.6 times higher dose of aminophylline than a non-smoker.
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Terrible prospects - loss of potency, malignant tumor or gangrene of the legs - will not make another passionate smoker give up a cigarette.
And the first experience in most cases does not bring particularly pleasant sensations: bitterness in the mouth, dizziness, nausea and nothing more. Therefore, the overwhelming majority perceive the first tobacco experience negatively. But in 5-7 percent of cases, craving is formed right at the tip of the cigarette.
And attraction is already a loss of control over desire. If the gourmet does not gorge himself to the point of nausea and nevertheless says "stop" to himself, then the smoker forgets about the brakes.
Why is the first experience so dangerous? Some researchers believe there is a predisposition to smoking. One puff is often enough to activate this mechanism. If the family smokes, the risk increases by 50-60 percent. This allows you to think about the hereditary factor.
An important role is also played by certain personality traits: impulsivity, anger, nervousness, relative indifference to one's health. Even such a "trifle" as good tolerance of tobacco smoke, to some extent, determines whether a person will smoke or not.
Studying the motivation for smoking, scientists conducted surveys of a large smoking audience. What did they find out? The addiction is explained by the pleasant sensation that a cigarette gives, the ability to better concentrate or relax, depending on the situation, the facilitation of intellectual activity and contacts with smoking friends.
In a moment of mental stress, the smoker does not need to gnaw on the pen or suck the bow of the glasses. For this, there is a cigarette, pipe or cigar. Every smoker knows that nicotine in a certain sense stimulates the brain.
Doctors from Houston College have been able, according to press reports, to unravel the mechanism of this phenomenon. The fact is that nicotine enhances the communication of brain cells - neurons with each other. That is, stagnation of gray matter, which means that smokers are not threatened with insanity soon. But in fact, smoking does not leave any neuron "indifferent", they become indignant, everyone begins to show activity.
The human brain is the main target of a nicotine attack. Once in the receptacle of the mind, nicotine first of all attacks the acetylcholine receptors, which are involved in many functions of the body, including respiration, the rhythm of heart activity, and memory.
But since the chemical structure of nicotine is similar to acetylcholine, it is able to activate the so-called cholinergic neurons, which use acetylcholine to communicate with other neurons. Naturally, during these attacks, nicotine also disrupts the normal functioning of the brain. Regular use of nicotine leads to changes in the number of cholinergic neurons and their sensitivity to nicotine and acetylcholine.
After that, a person develops a nicotine addiction: in order to maintain the normal functioning of the brain, he must smoke regularly. If the nicotine level drops, the person begins to experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, or withdrawal symptoms.
It has also been found that nicotine also stimulates the release of dopamine into the brain's pleasure circuit. This phenomenon has much in common with the one that occurs in the brain when using heroin and cocaine. That is, smoking is akin to drug use.
Another study showed that the so-called beta component, which is part of the structure of cholinergic receptors, plays a critical role in the emergence of addiction to nicotine.
In addition, scientists have found that smoking also leads to a decrease in the level of the enzyme that breaks down dopamine. Decrease in this enzyme called
monoamine oxidase-A (MAO-A), leads to an increase in dopamine levels. True, this effect is produced not by nicotine, but by some other substance of cigarette smoke. By itself, nicotine does not affect MAO-A levels, but rather indirectly affects dopamine.
SMOKING IS A RELIEF FOR HAWKS
A disappointing diagnosis of "sufferers" from cigarettes was made by the American scientist Stephen Potkin from the University of California.
He proves that it's all about the very nature of a person: aggressive, restless, hostile people by nature are programmed to smoke.
They need a truly titanic effort to abandon it. On the contrary, those who have a calm, peaceful character do not need nicotine.
Potkin conducted interesting experiments. He divided their participants into two groups - "pigeons" and "hawks" - among which were smokers and nonsmokers. Everyone was given doses of nicotine and then watched how their brains reacted to it. What has emerged?
The brain of the "pigeons" remained absolutely indifferent to the smoke, but among the "hawks" it, as they say, glowed with joy. Moreover, he gave a pronounced "response" both in the cortical and subcortical sectors, and in the limbic system, covering that part of the hemispheres on which the functions of internal organs, smell, emotions, memory, and wakefulness depend.
So, an American scientist was able to show for the first time that the brain is the "culprit" of nicotine addiction. It turns out that people are born with a craving for a cigarette. In addition, the results of the work explain why some never quit smoking, while others are free of it.
NIKOTINE AND BRAIN