Nicotine Like Drugs Aim At Psychiatric Ills

ApplesForHealth.com
Volume 1, Number 39 - February 25, 2000

Nicotine Like Drugs Aim At Psychiatric Ills applesforhealth.com. Researchers say preliminary studies show nicotine and nicotine like drugs can improve behavior and performance in patients with Parkinson's disease, Tourette syndrome and Alzheimer's disease.
 

"During the past decade we have been seeing that there may be beneficial effects of nicotine in neuropsychiatric diseases,"

said Paul Sanberg, professor and chairman of neuroscience at the University of South Florida, Tampa, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington on Monday.

Sanberg and colleagues presented several studies that showed how nicotine, a nicotine like high blood pressure medication and experimental nicotine like substances seemed to help patients.
 

"None of us advocate smoking," said Sanberg. All the studies involved delivering the drugs through intravenous infusions or with patches that allow absorption of the drug through the skin. In many cases, the patches used in the studies are similar to those which can be purchased over the counter.
 

But the study results are preliminary, and the numbers of patients involved are small, the researchers said. "On the basis of these studies, it is really too early to recommend the use of these patches for patients with these disorders," said Dr. Paul Newhouse, director of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington.
 

"It would be a bit rash to suggest that people buy these patches without long term studies." The researchers reported: In Parkinson's disease, Newhouse treated 15 patients with varying levels of intravenous nicotine, nicotine plus the oral blood pressure medication mecamylamine or placebos. The patients were then placed on nicotine patches for two weeks.
 

"Nicotine appeared to improve performance speed in all three clinical performance tasks. In most cases, improvement appeared to persist after drug withdrawal, although there was some evidence for the beginning of a return towards baseline (condition at the start of the trial) values at the session two weeks after drug withdrawal," Newhouse said.
 

He said some patients continued to use the patches after the trial, and he received at least one anecdotal report on continued success.

In Alzheimer's disease, Newhouse administered the investigational drug ABT-418 through a patch system to seven patients. ABT-418 is very similar in structure to nicotine. He said the results showed a marked improved in memory among the patients.
 

"The results were very robust," Newhouse said. "If the results were not so robust, I couldn't have gotten the paper published with only seven patients." He said some patients nearly doubled their recall ability and were able to reduce the numbers of mental errors in cognition.
 

In Tourette syndrome, Sanberg said administering nicotine patches to children age 8 to 17 resulted in improvement in conduct and reduction in the number of physical and verbal tics associated with the disorder. The 70 children in the study were also taking other medication.
 

Tourette syndrome is characterized by movement disorders, verbal outbursts that can be inappropriate, obscene or profane and other behavioral disorders. Many Tourette's patients have other psychiatric disorders, such as attention deficit disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
 

In a study in which children were given either nicotine or dummy patches in addition to medication already being taken, Sanberg noted an 80 percent reduction in motor tics, verbal tics and behavioral problems.
 

Paradoxically, the researchers said, adding nicotine improved concentrations of neurotransmitters in conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's to help those patients, but decreased levels of these chemicals' crucial brain messaging in Tourette syndrome.
 

"We have not seen any addiction problems with the use of the patches," Sanberg said. "Nicotine addiction seems to be based on the mode of administration -- smoking." However, the patches caused side effects such as nausea, or itchiness at the patch site.
 

Newhouse said: "The patch by itself is not reinforcing for addiction. You don't see kids at school trying to score nicotine patches."

Sanberg said the studies on nicotine were originally funded through tobacco related institutes, but now the research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, and through non-profit organizations such as those aimed at aiding Tourette's patients.

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