If you try to search
on the Web for the topic of the tobacco smoking related health hazards, you
will find enormous amount of the popular and scientific resources, supporting
the statement. But to surprise for most people, the tobacco smoking has not
just negative, but also positive effects. The related data is not so easy to
locate, since the positive effects of smoking, mostly thanks to the nicotine,
is not officially encouraged by public media and official health organizations.
The reasons are simple. The positive effects of nicotine smoking do not play
well with enormous pressure on smokers from all directions, so lack of the
proper disclosure serves mostly political and educational purposes.
While I do understand
the underground reason for the efforts to emphasize the negative effects, and
cover up the positive effects, I do not personally agree with this approach.
Yes, smoking is indeed disastrous for the human health, but hiding information
is not the best way to achieve global educational tasks. Decision to quit
smoking should be made based on all available information by the well-informed
individuals. Making the right choice by motivated people, aware about all
aspects of the problem, is the only way to promote healthy lifestyle.
In this post, I will
provide excerpts from the English translation of the Original Danish article,
written in March 2011 by Niels Ipsen,
environmental biologist and Klaus Kjellerup, researcher Science is
conclusive: Tobacco increases work capacity.
You can review the original article at the following link: Forskere er sikre: Tobak øger
arbejdsevnen, and the translation is available here: http://dengulenegl.dk/English/Nicotine.html
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According to
public health officials, tobacco has no benefits at all: "A harmful and
unnecessary product," says the WHO (World Health Organization), which has
lobbied national governments to combat tobacco use since 1975. Since the 1960’s
authorities worldwide have focused exclusively on the health hazards of
tobacco, and thus given it a very negative image. Their many anti-smoking
campaigns may have made the world forget that tobacco use also has positive
aspects. But as we know, any issue always has at least two sides, and now the
positive effects of tobacco have resurfaced in the scientific literature.
After 40 years of scientific
research on the effects of nicotine, researchers now say that they have sound
scientific proof that smoking and nicotine have a significant positive effect
on human brain performance.
The brain works better when it gets nicotine - almost like an optimized
computer. Nicotine is a "work-drug" that enables its consumers to
focus better and think faster. The brain also becomes more enduring, especially
in smokers: Nicotine experiments show that smokers in prolonged working
situations are able to maintain concentration for many hours longer than
non-smokers.
This seems like a paradox considering the smoking bans imposed on
workplaces in many countries - but it is nonetheless the picture emerging from
hundreds of scientific studies of smoking and nicotine. It seems very unlikely
that companies would be able to stop smoking in workplaces with many smokers
without experiencing a decline in labor productivity.
Generally nicotine boosts the brain to work 10-30% more efficiently in
a number of areas. This is especially true for smoking - but also true when
using smokeless nicotine. But at the same time, when smokers and nicotine users
abstain, they experience a perhaps equally great decline in the effect. This is
called the "withdrawal effect" - a nicotine craving, especially for
smokers.
Thus the difference between smoking and smoking abstinence is very
pronounced for a smoker - a difference of perhaps as much as 50%. And,
according to the scientists, this answers the question: Why do people smoke?
The answer is simple: Because smoking boosts their brain power.
Nicotine boosts
attention, precision, motor skills, speed and memory
In 2010 the U.S.
government published a groundbreaking meta-analysis, which summarizes the last
40 years of knowledge about tobacco and nicotine effects on the brain. The
analysis was conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, headed by
researcher Stephen Heishman: Meta-analysis
of the acute effects of nicotine and smoking on human performance.
The results in Heishman's analysis give the clear impression that it
could turn out to be a very bad idea to try to "eradicate" tobacco.
For nicotine has positive impacts in the areas of motor skills, attention,
focus, speed and memory - and the effect is significant, the researchers say:
The results are not due to statistical chance.
Heishman's team examined all 256 published non-medicinal nicotine tests
carried out since 1994 when they conducted a similar study. The tests measured
both the effect of cigarettes on smokers - and the effect of non-smoking
nicotine on non-smokers.
48 of the best
quality trials were selected for the meta-analysis following strict scientific
criteria: They had to be placebo controlled - with nicotine-free patches and
nicotine-free cigarettes - and double blinded, so no subjects knew whether they
had received nicotine or not.
Furthermore only trials in which none of the smokers were craving
tobacco were used. Thus Heishman excluded the risk that smokers may have
performed unusually well because of their relief from the withdrawal
effect.
The analysis paints a picture of nicotine as an effective and fast
acting drug, which improves the brain's performance in work situations - a
genuine "work-drug". Unlike drugs such as alcohol, cannabis, cocaine
and heroin, which are not useful during work.
So apart from the health hazards of cigarettes, it seems the only
drawback of nicotine is the addictive effect, although this is still
controversial among scientists, and should not be confused with dependence on
narcotics. And although pure nicotine is poisonous in large doses, there is no
evidence of health risks from nicotine in the amounts in which it is consumed
using tobacco.
Why are many
scientists, athletes and artists smokers?
The positive
effect on the brain may explain why many of history's greatest scientists
have been avid smokers - for example Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein, both of
whom praised the effect of tobacco on their scientific thinking.
Furthermore, it is known that many athletes, creative people, stage
performers, writers, musicians and artists through time have been smokers. The
nicotine in cigarettes appears to have been particularly important for people
who need to produce something unique or competitive in their work.
Top footballers, in particular, have often surprised the media when it
emerged that they were avid smokers, while they were at the peak of their
careers. For example, the puritanical British media people couldn't imagine
that a top player like Wayne Rooney would be able to deliver top performances
for his team, when they revealed it as a scandal, that Rooney is a smoker.
The truth is however, that
some of the world's most creative stars - like Zinedine Zidane, Diego Maradona,
Johan Cruyff, Ronaldo, Dimitar Berbatov and many other players from the highest
levels of football - were avid smokers while they were at the top of their
careers - including the Danish 80's hero, Preben Elkjaer.
Cigarettes have also always been an indispensable part of soldiers'
field rations, and still are. A war cannot be won without cigarettes, soldiers
said - so in 2009 the Pentagon had to drop a proposal to ban smoking in the
U.S. Army after very strong protests from soldiers and veterans.
According to Stephen Heishman's analysis, there is a very good reason
why competitive people smoke. This is because of the nicotine boost to the
brain - nicotine helps them produce better performances.
The effects also suggest an answer to the puzzle of why people start
smoking and continue on a permanent basis - and the proof comes paradoxically
from the results of the effect of nicotine on non-smokers, who also perform
better when they get nicotine gum. Heishman writes:
"... [The
fact that] the results are also found among non-smokers is an indirect evidence
that nicotine performance enhancing effects may be the reason why people start
smoking."
Nicotine makes
the brain faster and more precise
The 48 experiments included in Heishman's analysis consisted of several
groups of volunteers who had completed a series of standardized computer tests:
One half received nicotine, while control subjects received a placebo. With few
exceptions, nicotine users did better in all tests, whether they were smokers
or non-smokers. This was especially true in the areas of attention, precision,
focus, memory and speed - and to a lesser degree of motor skills
The researchers also found other
areas where nicotine users had significantly better outcomes - including gross
motor skills, long-term memory, semantic memory, arithmetic & complex
calculations. But these experiments were not used in the analysis because there
are still too few experiments in these areas.
Are smokers
better drivers and pilots?
This applies to experiments
demonstrating that smoking and nicotine have a significant positive effect on
one’s ability to drive a car and fly flight simulators. Smokers and other
nicotine users will score better in driving tests, both in overview, focus and
steering maneuvers - and they respond quicker on the brakes, when required
compared to non-nicotine users.
These experiments however could not be standardized for the other
trials in the analysis, so Heishman calls for more standardized driving and
flight tests with nicotine to get an accurate picture of nicotine effects on
motorists and pilots.
Stephen Heishman and the research team conclude in the study:
"The
significant effects of nicotine on motor abilities, attention and memory,
likely represent true performance enhancement because they are not confounded
by withdrawal relief. The beneficial cognitive effects of nicotine have
implications for initiation of smoking and maintenance of tobacco
dependence."
Put another way: Smokers smoke and keep on smoking because their brains
work better when they smoke. This is probably also the reason that it is hard
to quit smoking. And since experimental animals in laboratories have shown
similar results, there is no longer any doubt among scientists:
Nicotine - the
active substance in the world's most unpopular plant - the tobacco plant - is
paradoxically a "wonder drug" that leads to better job performance. A
gift for the working human being?
Tobacco Harm
researcher Professor Brad Rodu from Louisiana University says that Heishman's
analysis is a breakthrough in understanding tobacco and nicotine effects. In
his article "The
Proven Positive Effects of Nicotine and Tobacco" on his blog, Tobacco
Truth, he writes:
"This
analysis will not please anti-tobacco extremists. It’s time to be honest with
the 50 million Americans, and hundreds of millions around the world, who use
tobacco. The benefits they get from tobacco are very real, not imaginary or
just the periodic elimination of withdrawal."
Brad Rodu has spent many years working in the branch of tobacco science
known as Tobacco Harm Reduction. He is a proponent of allowing all use of
smokeless tobacco, for example snus and chewing tobacco, which he believes is
"almost 100% safer than cigarettes." Rodu conducts his own research into
the health effects of smokeless tobacco, with funding from an annual "no
strings attached" grant from the tobacco industry to Louisiana University.
“It’s time to
abandon the myth that tobacco is devoid of benefits, and to focus on how we can
help smokers continue to derive those benefits with a safer delivery
system," Rodu writes.
Smoking gives the brain more
stamina
Other nicotine
tests show results that seriously question the idea of smoking bans in
workplaces. Several studies show that smokers' brains have more stamina in long
work situations compared to non-smokers, providing the smoker can smoke
while working. Smokers can maintain concentration for long hours without
getting tired, while non-smokers concentration quickly breaks down.
This phenomenon was brought to US public attention in 1976 when
environmental activist Ralph Nader suggested in a TV program that pilots should
be prohibited from smoking on U.S. airplanes for safety reasons. Immediately
after this proposal, the news media received a warning from Dr. Norman
Heimstra: "A bad idea," he wrote.
Dr. Norman Heimstra had done the world's first primitive nicotine
experiments back in 1967. Three groups of people spent six hours in a car
simulator - smokers, non-smokers and "abstemious" smokers. Result:
The abstinent smokers fared worst in all tests - but the experiment also showed
that smokers fared best when the first three hours had passed. At the same time
the study revealed that smokers showed no aggressiveness while driving and
handled emergency situations better than the other two groups.
"In a critical situation the smoking pilot might well be the
best pilot," Dr. Heimstra wrote to the media. "I
would much rather climb into an airplane piloted by a chain-smoker than one
piloted by a smoker deprived of cigarettes for a number of hours - not allowed
to smoke during flight," he ended his warning in 1976 - and
subsequently the proposal of a smoking ban among pilots was dropped.
Thirty years
after Heimstra's primitive experiments other tests have confirmed that
nicotine gives smokers' brains more stamina.
It is illustrated for example in the trial, The effects of cigarette
smoking on overnight performance of Parkin & Hindmarch 1997, where smokers
and nonsmokers were to do five different computer tests from 8 o'clock in the
evening to 12 hours later. In all tests the non-smoker concentration levels
broke down after two hours - while smokers could maintain concentration until 4
o'clock in the morning thanks to the nicotine in the cigarettes.
For years
scientists have discussed the "withdrawal" effect in smokers - the
phenomenon that smokers themselves describe as "concentration
difficulty" when they have not smoked for several hours. In the
anti-smoking lobby it is believed that the phenomenon is a simple abstinence
effect that smokers can lift by smoking a cigarette again, and thereby return
to the same level of performance as "normal people".
But this theory no longer holds true after the Heishman analysis.
Nicotine in itself creates better performance compared to placebo, whether
smokers or non-smokers. But there are scientists who do not believe that the
"withdrawal" effect has been proven.
One of them is nicotine researcher, Professor David Warburton of
Reading University, who in a double experiment in 1994 first demonstrated that
100 "abstinent" smokers and 100 non-smokers achieved similar results
in three specific figures tests. In experiment no. 2 he repeated the same three
tests with only the smokers who were divided into two groups - one that had
been "abstinent" for 12 hours, while the second group had smoked one
hour earlier: Improvements in performance without nicotine withdrawal.
Both groups were divided into two subgroups, one receiving regular
cigarettes, while the other had fake cigarettes. In one task, participants were
told to enter the correct numbers in a certain sequence in 20 minutes - and
after the first five minutes they should light up a cigarette and take one puff
every minute.
The Warburton
trial shows specifically that cigarettes' effect on attention and response
time is particularly strong in the ten minutes during which the actual smoking
takes place, and in the following minutes.
He is one of the pioneers of modern nicotine research, after the
invention of nicotine pills and chewing gum that allowed scientists to make
nicotine trials in non-smokers. It soon became clear however, that the effect
of nicotine gum is not as strong as the effect of smoking. As concluded in 1983
by Warburton and Wesnes in a scientific article: Smoking, nicotine and human
performance:
"[Smoke-free]
nicotine produces improvements in mental efficiency, which are qualitatively
similar to the improvements produced by smoking, although our findings on
vigilance and rapid information processing indicate that the improvements are
quantitatively smaller than those produced by smoking."
David Warburton results were later repeated in many controlled trials
of nicotine, including Parrott & Winder i 1989: Nicotine chewing gum and
cigarette smoking: Comparative effects upon vigilance and heart rate. As the
graph shows, smoking is the most effective nicotine delivery method:
The authors conclude in the article: "People entering smoking
cessation programs, should be warned to expect that vigilance and concentration
will probably be reduced when they cease smoking. They should also be advised
that nicotine gum will probably aid their concentration / attention, although
not to the extent that may have occurred with cigarettes."
It may seem paradoxical that
smokers in countries with workplace smoking bans are sent away from their desk
when they smoke. Not only because of the extra time it takes away from work,
but because their brains perform most rapidly and accurately when they are
smoking and in the minutes that follow.
The indisputable evidence for positive nicotine effects is also in
contrast to some companies' policies of not hiring smokers. In 2010 Danish
bedding company Jysk asked smokers not to apply when they advertised for new
employees. According to Jysk's management however, this policy was stopped
because of protests from the public.
Other companies have chosen to arrange cessation courses among
employees in order to appear to be politically correct "healthy
businesses". There is a risk that these companies are not getting the best
possible performance from their smoking employees.
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The finding, provided in the posts, are highly controversial, you may
consider them as having valid scientific background, or your may disregard them
altogether. But, if you read to the end of the post, you may agree that they
represent a big chunk of the scientific research, not widely disclosed to the
general public.
In any case, I hope that will not change your mind to quit smoking if
you decided to, and no way should you not start smoking tobacco if you are not
hooked to the bad habit. But, you are full grown adult, and you should understand,
that nothing in life is black-and-white. And every decision should be made not
due to the lack of knowledge, government propaganda, or hysteric social campaigns,
but based on the well-calculated risk considerations and respect to your own
health and wellbeing.
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