Tobacco increases work capacity (2011)

http://www.dengulenegl.dk/English/Nicotine.html

by swah • 13 years ago

31 64 13 years ago

smtddr• 13 years ago

If there's anyone on HN who actually believes this scientific study, please explain why. Right now I think this is complete garbage that I hope never reaches the eyes of young & impressionable people. Smoking is bad for you any benefit it may or may not have is completely eclipsed by the mountains upon mountains of evidence showing the damage to the human body.

EDIT: Removing quotes per comments below.

EDIT2: Ok, I guess even if there are 99 bad things that are caused by smoking it doesn't mean there can't be 1 or 2 things good from it.

tlarkworthy3• 13 years ago

nicotine is a stimulant. That's been known forever. People when tired prop themselves up with coffee and cigarettes. So it seems totally believable.

The study doesn't say the cancer and heart problems don't exist, or are outweighed in any way. It just says nicotine has some positive effects. Most drugs do ... that's why people take them.

I smoke. I don't want to die. So that's why I am trying to switch to a vapouriser. Every time I give up smoking, I get hit by a crushing amount of work at some point and then I start smoking again, because it makes me more effecient and stay awake longer. If I could have the productivity without the cancer that would be brilliant.

visakanv5• 13 years ago

Yep, I remember that I always smoked more when tired, sleep deprived, etc.

pessimizer6• 13 years ago

I'm not sure that your scare quotes around "scientific study" are an interesting enough argument to tempt people to put much of an effort into responding to you.

jrockway3• 13 years ago

Just because something can kill you doesn't mean it doesn't also have benefits. Ultimately, one can decide for him or herself what's better: living longer, or getting more work done at work.

throwaway009411• 13 years ago

Not necessarily a trade-off with non-tobacco nicotine.

coldtea3• 13 years ago

If there's anyone on HN who actually believes this "scientific study", please explain why.

Please explain why you use quotes around "scientific study". What's unscientific about it?

Saying that various drugs, such as nicotine, have effects on our brain (concentration, focus, relax, depression etc etc)? That's a scientific given, and has been formally studied for centuries.

* I think this is complete garbage that I hope never reaches the eyes of young & impressionable people*

Young and impressionable people? Sounds like some Southern bigot in 1955, talking about this "devil's music".

Smoking is bad for you any benefit it may or may not have is completely eclipsed by the mountains upon mountains of evidence showing the damage to the human body.

Which is totally beside the point. They are not suggesting you start smoking.

lewispollard• 13 years ago

Despite the post's title, the study was about nicotine specifically, not tobacco. There are ways these days to consume nicotine without smoking tobacco.

gwern• 13 years ago

Nicotine is great. I find it very useful. The claims about its stimulant effects are perfectly plausible.

But there is zero need to consume/use tobacco to get nicotine.

psbp4• 13 years ago

What methods do you recommend?

throwaway009411• 13 years ago

From his Nictotine article, gum or patch. But e-cig might be fine too if the parts don't have lead or other hazardous substances in them, modulo maybe higher risk of addiction.

refurb3• 13 years ago

Use an electronic cigarette (vaporizer) or use the OTC nicotine replacement therapies (gum, lozenges, sprays).

pessimizer6• 13 years ago

Not the parent, but Swedish snus is a great option.

icegreentea• 13 years ago

Breaking form and upvoting and commenting saying that this should be upvoted.

But seriously, I remember when the last e-cig article submitted to HN. Comments were a complete shit show of conflation of of tobacco, smoking and nicotine. It was absolutely completely cringeworthy.

Mind you the article does just fine conflating the two as well. For example, the first big evidence it produces, the meta-analysis on effect of nicotine. The article leads in with "which summarizes the last 40 years of knowledge about tobacco and nicotine effects on the brain", but the actual study is directly about nicotine only, only dealing with tobacco tangentially.

This is absolute hurtful to the discussion.

And honestly, anytime we have a discussion about non-medicinal (as in using chemicals to treat a condition that a doctor would consider not normal) use of drugs, its probably really useful to take a moment and think "how about our societal addiction to caffeine?".

hmsimha• 13 years ago

There really need to be more studies on the effects of nicotine in isolation from all the other chemicals in cigarettes. There have been studies that have shown that the MAOIs in tobacco interact with nicotine pretty strongly in creating addiction. I wouldn't be surprised if the MAOIs are also related to why people with mental and mood disorders often self-regulate with tobacco.

VladRussian22• 13 years ago

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.

the same can be said about meth or other ADHD drugs. "Magic comes with a price" :) (i was a smoker of cigarettes for a decade and quit more than a decade ago)

textminer• 13 years ago

There's a functional and chemical different between the amphetamine salts in popular ADD drugs and methamphetamine (namely, a methyl group.)

throwaway009411• 13 years ago

But perhaps more importantly, not a big subjective difference ;-).

lolwutf7• 13 years ago

This isn't what the original commenter said!

Reread and realize he's talking about the subjective difference.

throwaway009411• 13 years ago

Meth is only prescribed for ADHD in the US. Is it prescribed for ... nevermind, you edited your post. (Original said something to the effect of "meth is prescribed for drowsiness in pilots," which is inaccurate for the US.)

VladRussian22• 13 years ago

Dexedrine.

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/02/57434

lolwutf7• 13 years ago

Meth is quite hard to get, via prescription, unfortunately. Its bad rep in pop media has resulted in it becoming overcontrolled by the FDA. It's quite a useful - but little explored and used - therapy for AD(H)D.

You'll nearly universally get straight d-amphetamine at the doctor's office.

refurb3• 13 years ago

When the poster said pilots, I think he was referring to military pilots. The use of stimulants in combat situations is apparently quite common for pilots.

rmrfrmrf• 13 years ago

Which is why I think the moral panic about ADHD overdiagnosis in the USA is nonsense. The US is a country founded on stimulants; I hypothesize that behavioral norms and benchmarks for success in the United States have been influenced by heavy nicotine use from upward of 40% of adult Americans prior to the tobacco control movement, and that the increased diagnosis of ADHD in teens and young adults now may be due to lower nicotine use.

I've been looking for a while for any scholarly (peer reviewed) papers that explore this idea; if anyone knows of any, I'd love to read them!

visakanv5• 13 years ago

I've smoked on and off for about 6 years, with the past year being about 98% off. I can tell you that I do FEEL more focused and clear after a cigarette, but that all the negative side-effects that come with them are totally not worth it. If you really want a stimulant, stick with caffeine.

I've actualy been meaning to write a blogpost about it. Some of the things I've noticed from being on and off cigarettes:

Cigarettes (edit: nicotine, actually) are a depressant (EDIT: and a stimulant), they make the world feel less colourful (LITERALLY), less "noisy".

EDIT: I realize I'm being psuedosciency and imprecise with the previous statement. I'm not sure about the precise distinctions between stimulant/upper/downer, etc. What I CAN tell you is that cigarettes have the following effects for me and my smoker peers, as far as I've known ->

When I'm on cigarettes, my field of vision narrows, colours become duller, I'm marginally more focused on specific tasks, better able to "tune out 'random noise'". Whenever I go off cigarettes, the world feels a little overwhelming and chaotic for a while- my skin is more sensitive to the wind, my eyes are more sensitive to the light, the whole nervous system just gets overwhelmed (because the cigarettes kinda suppess them, in my opinion.)

The short-term gain in focus is nothing great. You can get it by sitting in silence for a minute, breathing deeply, psyching yourself up with a youtube video. Not worth the damage you do to your eyes, nose, gums, teeth, not worth the cough, not worth the smell, the taste... all of that is underreported because there's a "frog in boiling water" effect- the damage is so cumulative that it feels tolerable.

Yes, I remember when cigarettes helped focus my thoughts as a writer, or over conversations with friends... but honestly, taking a walk achieves superior returns, on both counts.

Commander Shepard: "What's your opinion of this? The drugs, I mean."

Legion: "These substances enhance short-term performance at the expense of long-term platform survivability. It is fundamentally similar to "over-clocking" geth hardware. We do so whenever necessary. However, should our platform be damaged by overclocking, we can be repaired. Why an organic would choose this is puzzling."

pessimizer6• 13 years ago

Cigarettes are a depressant

You mean something different here than what most people mean when they say depressant. Are you saying that smoking makes you feel bad?

visakanv5• 13 years ago

A depressant, or central depressant, is a drug or endogenous compound that lowers neurotransmission levels, which is to depress or reduce arousal or stimulation, in various areas of the brain. Depressants are also occasionally referred to as "downers" as they lower the level of arousal when taken. Stimulants or "uppers" increase mental and/or physical function are the functional opposites of depressants.

I mean cigarettes (nicotine, actually) are a "downer", the opposite of how LSD is an "upper" (which makes the world more colourful, makes you feel more "connected", etc)

EDIT: I can't reply to your next comment for some reason, but I've been doing some googling and I realize that I'm unclear and mistaken about my drugs and their effects. Making necessary adjustments, thanks.

coldtea3• 13 years ago

He is using the regular medical meaning of the term.

To correct him, though, nicotine acts both as a stimulant and depressant.

coldtea3• 13 years ago

"Why an organic would choose this is puzzling."

He must be fun at gestalt parties...

harvestmoon• 13 years ago

Thanks for sharing and glad you've been almost off cigarettes entirely.

That said, nicotine is a mild stimulant, not a depressant, afaik. It's alcohol that's a depressant.

lolwutf7• 13 years ago

Both. Novelly, enough.

How it acts depends on how much is administered.

visakanv5• 13 years ago

Thanks!

More anecdotal nonsense: I think almost everybody starts smoking (apart from the social factors) for the stimulant bit- for the 'kick'. It gets you more buzzy when you take shorter, quicker drags. It relaxes you when you take long, slow drags.

I think the net effect of smoking over an extended period of time has a "net depressant effect" (using term loosely), punctuated by the daily/regular stimulation. Very loosely, the opposite effect of exercising and eating healthily over an extended period of time.

That's just my experience, no science involved there. Curious if others relate to this.

robobro• 13 years ago

Beautiful post, I know smoking always helps me!

sgtpepper2• 13 years ago

Cigarettes are a nasty filthy habit...

But I find a good cigar or pipe useful for clearing the mind when working on hard problems.

sehr2• 13 years ago

Red Bulls are a nasty filthy habit...

But I find a good espresso or americano to be useful for helping the mind stay alert.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cigar-smoking/AN01515

sgtpepper2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure the relevance of the link.. I never said cigars were healthier.. certainly there are risks involved. But there's a huge gulf between a pack a day habit and a couple day a month indulgence.

r0m4n0• 13 years ago

You don't hear about the benefits of smoking because of the obvious downsides... I will contribute to the benefits. "Although tobacco smoke decreases life expectancy and quality of life, it may reduce the risk of PD by a third when compared to non-smokers" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_disease

Tobacco increases work capacity (2011)

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