Reports on the nicotine's potential to cure schizophrenia. Ability
of nicotine in cigarettes to counteract some of the impairments caused by
schizophrenia and the drug most often used to treat it; Experiments at
Duke University Medical Center led by psychiatry professor Edward D.
Levin.
By
Peter Doskoch, published on September 01, 1996
NICOTINE
WHILE ONLY one in four Americans now light up, cigarette use hovers
near 90 percent among schizophrenics. But for folks with this personality
disorder, smoking may be a form of self-medication. Nicotine, it seems,
counteracts some of the impairments caused by schizophrenia and the drug
most often used to treat it.
In experiments at Duke University Medical Center, nicotine patches
boosted schizophrenics' performance on tests of short-term memory and of
mental processing speed abilities with which Haloperidol, the leading
antipsychotic drug, interferes. Nicotine also improved participants'
attention spans as they tackled a boring computer task for 14
mind-numbing minutes, reports Duke professor of psychiatry Edward D.
Levin, Ph.D., in the journal Neuropsycho-pharmacology.
However, given tobacco's well-documented health hazards, Levin and
his colleagues don't recommend that schizophrenics cultivate a cigarette
habit. But he says the study supports the idea that for schizophrenics,
smoking is probably an unconscious attempt to restore some of their
blunted mental abilities.
PHOTO (COLOR): Could smoking alleviate schizophrenics' split
thoughts?
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