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American Morning

Paging Dr. Gupta: Nicotine and Memory

Aired December 04, 2003 - 08:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: No such thing as a good cigarette, but a new study suggests that nicotine actually has health benefits. It could help prevent memory lapses.
And Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from the CNN center with details on that this morning.

Hey, Sanjay, good morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

No one is going to encourage people to smoke out there based on the study. But it is sort of interesting out there. For some time now, it's been known that nicotine may have some health benefits. Nicotine specifically benefits on Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Diseases, things like that. So some researchers decided to put it to the test to try and determine whether or not it might also have some benefits when it comes to something known as AAMI, which is age associated memory impairment.

Specifically what did, is they decided to take the patch and determine if the nicotine patch, in comparison to a placebo, might actually cause some benefit with regards to memory. Very interesting what they found. What they did, 11 people, and they basically put a nicotine patch on for four weeks and they put a placebo patch on for four weeks, except the seniors didn't know which was which. When you had the nicotine patch on they had improved attentional performance on tests, and were actually able to cut their decision time-making in about half. They also felt sharper, more attentive, more cognitively involved, as well.

Now, a couple of things. When you talk about these nicotine receptors in the brain, they're a pretty normal part of the brain. They actually exist for all sorts of different purposes. Smoking obviously gives it a bad rap. But the nicotine receptors are associated with memory. And specifically attention more than anything else. So what these researchers sort of honed in on here is that if you give nicotine, in this case a patch, an existing patch, you might be able to improve attention specifically in those that have this age- associated memory impairment -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Have they done studies on any smokers or any studies planned where they would see if smokers have a better attention plan or more focus than nonsmokers?

GUPTA: You know, it's interesting, they specifically looked at the patch in this particular case, they haven't looked at smokers sort of as a blanket group, and the specific population here were people that had problems with their memory. These weren't -- quote, unquote -- normal people who never complained of memory problems. They all had what they called senior moments, age associated memory impairment. So that study, that sort of blanket study, has not been done. And this was actually a very small study, as well, eleven patients only. But again, it confirms some of what has already been known out there about some of the beneficial effects of nicotine.

O'BRIEN: As you say, this is a small study done on a very targeted group of people. Do you expect one day that they will sort of work these nicotine patches into the general population as a whole? And what would the risks healthwise be of that?

GUPTA: Right. Well you know, and be very careful here, because no one's advocating nicotine per se. But there are a montage of different products out there, people know about the patches, they know about the gums, all sorts of different things. People think about the cigarettes primarily. What the biggest sort of obstacle is going to be to try and getting a medication out there to improve memory is that the nicotine has to be given in a very dose-regulated fashion, because nicotine, in and of itself, can have some pretty significant health effects. It makes the arteries in your body a little narrower, causing constriction, possibly leading to heart attacks and stroke. So the tradeoffs are just going to be too high.

If you could develop a product that has nicotine in small enough quantities to give you memory improvements while not giving you some of the other negative side effects that might be down the line, they're nowhere near to that yet, and again, no one is advocating smoking to try and improve memory.

O'BRIEN: I think that's something you almost can't say too much. Don't smoke. All right, Sanjay, thanks a lot.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 4, 2003 - 08:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: No such thing as a good cigarette, but a new study suggests that nicotine actually has health benefits. It could help prevent memory lapses.
And Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from the CNN center with details on that this morning.

Hey, Sanjay, good morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

No one is going to encourage people to smoke out there based on the study. But it is sort of interesting out there. For some time now, it's been known that nicotine may have some health benefits. Nicotine specifically benefits on Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Diseases, things like that. So some researchers decided to put it to the test to try and determine whether or not it might also have some benefits when it comes to something known as AAMI, which is age associated memory impairment.

Specifically what did, is they decided to take the patch and determine if the nicotine patch, in comparison to a placebo, might actually cause some benefit with regards to memory. Very interesting what they found. What they did, 11 people, and they basically put a nicotine patch on for four weeks and they put a placebo patch on for four weeks, except the seniors didn't know which was which. When you had the nicotine patch on they had improved attentional performance on tests, and were actually able to cut their decision time-making in about half. They also felt sharper, more attentive, more cognitively involved, as well.

Now, a couple of things. When you talk about these nicotine receptors in the brain, they're a pretty normal part of the brain. They actually exist for all sorts of different purposes. Smoking obviously gives it a bad rap. But the nicotine receptors are associated with memory. And specifically attention more than anything else. So what these researchers sort of honed in on here is that if you give nicotine, in this case a patch, an existing patch, you might be able to improve attention specifically in those that have this age- associated memory impairment -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Have they done studies on any smokers or any studies planned where they would see if smokers have a better attention plan or more focus than nonsmokers?

GUPTA: You know, it's interesting, they specifically looked at the patch in this particular case, they haven't looked at smokers sort of as a blanket group, and the specific population here were people that had problems with their memory. These weren't -- quote, unquote -- normal people who never complained of memory problems. They all had what they called senior moments, age associated memory impairment. So that study, that sort of blanket study, has not been done. And this was actually a very small study, as well, eleven patients only. But again, it confirms some of what has already been known out there about some of the beneficial effects of nicotine.

O'BRIEN: As you say, this is a small study done on a very targeted group of people. Do you expect one day that they will sort of work these nicotine patches into the general population as a whole? And what would the risks healthwise be of that?

GUPTA: Right. Well you know, and be very careful here, because no one's advocating nicotine per se. But there are a montage of different products out there, people know about the patches, they know about the gums, all sorts of different things. People think about the cigarettes primarily. What the biggest sort of obstacle is going to be to try and getting a medication out there to improve memory is that the nicotine has to be given in a very dose-regulated fashion, because nicotine, in and of itself, can have some pretty significant health effects. It makes the arteries in your body a little narrower, causing constriction, possibly leading to heart attacks and stroke. So the tradeoffs are just going to be too high.

If you could develop a product that has nicotine in small enough quantities to give you memory improvements while not giving you some of the other negative side effects that might be down the line, they're nowhere near to that yet, and again, no one is advocating smoking to try and improve memory.

O'BRIEN: I think that's something you almost can't say too much. Don't smoke. All right, Sanjay, thanks a lot.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com