If you’re an American, there’s about a one-in-six chance that you smoke cigarettes. And if you are a smoker, there’s a big chance you smoke a lot. Every day, or every other day.
You’ve seen the commercials. Tobacco use kills almost half-a-million Americans every year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking costs the country $300 billion annually in lost productivity and smoking-related medical treatments. One in 10 female smokers will smoke during pregnancy.
Nicotine addiction is an expensive and dangerous problem. But it doesn’t have to be.
There’s a treatment on the horizon
Nicotine is an excruciatingly addictive substance, but what if it wasn’t? How many people would continue smoking – after understanding the expense and the health risks – if they weren’t biologically compelled to satisfy their nicotine craving?
A team of researchers want to find out. The group, led by Xinyuan Chen, assistant professor of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Rhode Island, has developed a vaccine to help smokers who are trying to quit. The vaccine, once perfected, will prevent the entry of nicotine into a smoker’s brain.
There’s years of research and development to back this up
Nicotine vaccines have existed for several years, but so far none of them have proven effective or stable enough to distribute to a wide population of smokers. The latest vaccine, by Chen and team, is an iteration on a previous version.
Previous vaccines worked to build up human immunity to nicotine molecules, but researchers had to pick and choose which type of molecule to defend against. The vaccine couldn’t cover everything.
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That’s where this new treatment aims to differentiate itself. Instead of focusing on specific types of molecules, Chen has trained the vaccine to alert the immune system and attack nicotine before it reaches the brain.
“This system is expected to safely and profoundly boost nicotine antibody production and completely block nicotine entry into the brain,” said Chen.
When tested on mice, researchers found that the vaccine slowed the effects of the nicotine within 10 minutes of the initial injection. The mice in question, the team discovered, also had lower concentrations of nicotine in their brains.
What does this mean for smokers?
As of early 2016, no nicotine vaccine has made it to market. Chen’s progress, however, shows that it is possible to block nicotine addiction, and it’s likely only a matter of time before such a treatment proves safe and effective for the 40 million smoking adults in America, and the countless millions across the rest of the world.
“We want to help those who are already addicted to nicotine, to help them quit smoking,” Chen said.
And it doesn’t end with nicotine. Opioid use is on the rise, and as many as 1.5 million Americans are actively using heroin. Chen thinks that someday drug users will also be able to turn to a single, streamlined source to help end their addiction.
“We also believe for other vaccines, that we could put multiple vaccines in one patch,” he added, “thereby eliminating the need for multiple injections.”
