In a study by researchers in Kings College London it has been found that nicotine can actually be good for the brain. But before you go lighting up a fag or slapping on the patches, be warned that the small health benefits would be far outweighed by the risks in most people.

Tests done on rats have found that nicoitne can improve their learning, memory and performance on cognitive tasks by up to 15 per cent. It is hoped that pharmeceutical companies can use the findings to produce new drugs to combat and prevent brain diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Obviously there will be problems to be addressed in the production of such drugs. The fact that nicotine is so addictive means that techniques will have to be developed to administer such treatments without the patients becoming reliant on it.  According to Professor Stoneman from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College,  it may not even be possible to totally prevent addiction. Nevertheless  “this is a promising stage in the years of research”.

Bookmark It

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 11:05 am and is filed under Health News, Mental Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.