Posted by baseball55 on December 18, 2016, at 20:03:16
In reply to Why isn't nicotine gum used for mood disorders?, posted by Prefect on December 18, 2016, at 8:28:17
Unlike Wellbutrin, nicotine has an extremely short half-life - one of the reasons it's so addictive. So you have to take it over and over in the course of a day and get cravings if you can't use it for some reason (like being in a meeting and not wanting to chomp on gum or suck lozenges). I'm totally addicted to nicotine gum and have been using it since I stopped smoking 20 years ago. It's a harmless enough habit, since apart from being super-addictive, nicotine is mostly just a mild stimulant.
> There's a whole new class of anti-depressants that appear to be effective in treating depression and anxiety by increasing norepinepherine and dopamine. Also, people with mental illness tend to self-medicate by being smokers, since nicotine has regulatory effects on the same neurotransmitters.
>
> I've always wondered why not just use nicotine gum, patch, or lozenge to treat mood disorders? It sound like nicotine has been the original Wellbutrin since the start of time. Surely we have more data on effects of nicotine than all these new drugs...
poster:baseball55
thread:1093563
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20161215/msgs/1093571.html