When Smoking is No Longer Fun

Warnings about the horrific images of death and adverse effects of smoking on health did not seem able to keep the smokers of hand-rolled tobacco. Although the number of smokers in the United States continues to decline each year, 20 percent of adults still smoke despite the high taxes imposed horrible packaging and labels.

To search for a new strategy to stop people smoking cigarettes, the researchers are now developing anti-nicotine vaccine. The new vaccine is believed to help smokers to quit smoking.

A recent study in mice indicates that the vaccine can release genes that stop nicotine substance before it reaches the brain, protecting mice from a lifetime of nicotine addiction with just one dose. Nicotine is the addictive drug found in cigarettes and other tobacco products. These compounds can also cause cancer.

Nicotine repellent vaccine.  
 (Picture from: KORAN TEMPO 3924)

"If you give nicotine in mice, they become relaxed, just like humans. His run is reduced, blood pressure and heart rate down," said study researcher Ronald Crystal, of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. "With the vaccine, giving nicotine in mice the same as giving them water, the vaccine is to stop nicotine reaching the brain."

This new vaccine is a type of gene therapy. This vaccine virus is safe to use as a vehicle to insert genes into rat liver cells.

Genes that code compiled for the manufacture of antibodies, the proteins made by the immune system to label and attack invaders such as bacteria, viruses, and toxins. In the case of this vaccine, the antibodies that target the nicotine.

In a new study on mice, the gene was removed by the virus can become part of the liver cells and actively form antibodies. They also saw that the antibodies can attach to nicotine and stop it before it reaches the brain of rats.

Once the antibodies attach to nicotine, rats no longer showed behavioral and physiological reactions to nicotine is injected into their bodies. Joint-nicotine antibodies were then pumped out by the liver cells, was removed from the blood, and then digested by the body and discarded.

When given the nicotine contained in two cigarettes, which have been vaccinated mice no longer decreased heart rate or blood pressure reduction that normally accompany the addictive compound.

Previously, attempts to create a nicotine vaccine has always failed because the immune system does not "fight" against nicotine. In the past, for example, the researchers tried to bind nicotine in the cholera toxin molecule, which is not a vicious attack. by the immune system. But the study does not produce enough antibodies to provide protection against the effects of nicotine on the brain, which is the basis why people likes cigarettes.

In this study, researchers conducted a study for 18 weeks and observed levels of anti-bodies all the time. Based on the application of virus release these genes, researchers speculate that this vaccine may work in the long run, even human life.

"Throughout our knowledge, this is safe for humans," says Crystal. "Based on the findings of other studies with this class of virus, we can expect they will work forever."

These antibodies are not going to stop a person addicted to nicotine, but basically makes people could no longer find satisfaction from smoking.

"For example, people smoke one cigarette for an hour, whether they are satisfied with smoked a cigarette every five minutes?" said Crystal. "Possibly, but there may be limits on how often people will smoke."

The researchers will continue the anti-nicotine vaccine research at the animal and the vaccine efficacy trials before being tested in humans. Crystal has also developed an anti-cocaine vaccine with a similar technique that showed promising results in monkeys and mice. *** [LIVESCIENCE | TJANDRA DEWI | KORAN TEMPO 3924]
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