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New Vaccine May Reduce Fatal Exposure To Nicotine

The National Institute for Drug Abuse has been working diligently to develop a new vaccine to facilitate smoking cessation. This vaccine may also protect the fetus in utero from exposure to nicotine.

NicVax NicVax works by joining nicotine in the bloodstream to a protein in order to create a complex molecule that is too large to cross the blood-brain barrier. This mechanism not only blocks nicotine penetration into the brain, but it also reduces the passage of nicotine across the placenta.

Smoking during pregnancy has many adverse affects on the development of the fetus

Killing more than half a million Americans each year, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness in the world today. Smoking cigarettes will harm nearly every organ in the human body. This can seriously compromise the smoker’s health and can cause many diseases. Cigarette smoke contains thousands of chemicals, many of which are toxins.

Drugs which are abused, including nicotine, affect behavior through actions of the brain, particularly in those circuits involved in reward and motivation. Immunization is a relatively new idea among researchers and developers who believe that immunizing against particular drugs may produce excellent results.

A quit smoking vaccine would work to coax the immune system into producing antibodies that could sequester nicotine molecules in the bloodstream, which would keep them from entering or affecting the brain. This supports the idea that if smokers find no reward in their smoking habit, they will automatically lose interest in smoking.

The National Institute of Drug Abuse began researching this concept about seven years ago. Since beginning research, the results have been amazing, generating antibodies that block nicotine’s entry into the brain, helping to prevent relapse for approximately ¼ of the clinical participants for at least two months.

An anti-smoking vaccine would be extremely helpful for smoking cessation and is something which researchers have long since been searching for. Most individuals who would like to quit smoking find it difficult for the simple fact that of the nicotine withdrawal symptoms and the continued desire to feed the nicotine habit. Researchers hope to complete development of this new vaccine by 2010.

This could be the positive turn society needs in order to help smokers take that final step towards a tobacco-free lifestyle.

For continued up-to-date information regarding this vaccine, check out the National Institute of Drug Abuse website at http://www.drugabuse.gov/NIDAHome.html. Individuals who are interested in participating in a smoking cessation study in their area can search upcoming and current research studies by visiting http://clinicaltrials.gov/.

I did a search on "smoking cessation Madison" and was able to find quit smoking studies in Madison, Wisconsin, which would be local for me.

Tags: fetus, nicotine addiction, nicotine withdrawal, pregnancy, quit smoking, smoking cessation, stop smoking, vaccine

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