Times Colonist

Victoria, British Columbia

SMOKING BENEFITS COME TO LIGHT FOR ALZHEIMER'S

June 28 1999

by Richard Watts, Times Colonist staff

It's probably something your doctor will never admit. but in a few cases it appears smoking can be good for you.

Hints of studies and evidence indicating there are benefits to nicotine appear from time to time in medical studies. But even then authors tend to play down the evidence.

For example, the latest issue of the Health Canada report on chronic diseases in Canada contains a study on deaths due to dementia. In the study is a reference to several other studies that suggest nicotine can help Alzheimer's patients.

"Although the evidence is equivocal, some epidemiological studies suggest that nicotine may protect against Alzheimer's disease," said the report. "In addition, nicotine may enhance cognition in normal individuals, in patients who already have Alzheimer's disease, and in animals."

It's evidence that was certainly never cited when the Capital Regional District tried to force senior citizens living in care homes to stop smoking indoors under their non-smoking bylaw.

It took public outcry, led by residents of the Oak Bay Lodge, to get the CRD (Capital Regional District) health officials to agree the care facility was actually the seniors' home, and therefore eligible for an exemption to the bylaw.

But Dr. Fred Bass, in charge of the B.C. Medical Association's stop-smoking campaign, agrees, in some cases, smoking can be a benefit. Alzheimer's and also Parkinson's patients both appear to benefit from nicotine.

Bass said some studies even go so far as to show people with Parkinson's disease live longer if they smoke.

As a former smoker and as a doctor committed to trying to help people quit the habit, he said the news that smoking can help certain people shouldn't be a surprise, especially brain/nervous system diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Nicotine benefits are what make smoking such an insidious habit to break. It's why people still do it, despite all the prevailing evidence that proves that tobacco smoke is truly toxic, and dangerous.

Bass said nicotine actually mimics a chemical that works in the transformation along the nervous system and the brain. Cigarettes allow nicotine to be delivered to the spots in the body where it works with a precision that any pharmacologist would envy.

"Smokers don't smoke because it's stupid," said Bass. "smoking is actually a very functional thing to do." "Smoking can focus your attention, control your moods and it's something that allows you to control the dose precisely to suit your own needs," said Bass.

But he said, as a physician, he would never advise anyone to smoke. And faced with a patient who insisted that smoking appeared to help alleviate symptoms of a medical condition or disease, Bass said he would look for an alternative.

"I'd say since you have a specific need for nicotine and your brain screams at you when it isn't supplied with nicotine, let's see if you can't switch to something else," he said.

Bass cautioned, however, that he knows of no studies examining whether nicotine gum or nicotine patches can help Alzheimer's or Parkinson's patients.

Trying to examine the phenomena of smoking and nicotine addiction takes physicians into the realm of new work, he said.

"It's right at the cutting edge of brain chemistry," said Bass.