‘The Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health released a study that showed people who smoke a pack or more of cigarettes daily had elevated levels of a protein known as monoamine oxidase in their brains in the early stages of abstaining from smoking.

The same chemical is known to be at high levels in people suffering from clinical depression.’

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/08/02/quitting-smoking-similar-to-clinical-depression-study/

This new information was discovered after analysing MRI brain scans on heavy smokers 8 hours after their last cigarette. Monoamine is a protein that feeds on several chemicals in the brain – notably serotonin – a chemical that regulates mood. It also states that Monoamine is found in cigarette smoke – and is not related to nicotine. An interesting aside to this study would then be a study on vapers ,to see if when  switching to e-cigs from analogues they had the same sense of irritability – or not.

This appears to be the first study of its kind, and so needs to be treated with caution – the study group was not large – a total of 24 smokers and 24 non smokers were included, the smokers were divided into those that smoked 15 to 25 cigarettes a day, and those that smoked above 25 a day. It is for the heavy smokers that this finding is relevant – one assumes the 25 cigarettes a day group – and this reduces the study group even further – urging yet more caution.

The research needs to be replicated and in much larger quantities for it to be valid; it also needs to be peered reviewed and well scrutinised.

Should this research be of importance though, it could indicate why smokers feel so grumpy and irritable when quitting, but if it takes 8 hrs for a 25% increase in the grumpy chemical – is it 8 hours back down to happiness? How long before levels reach those of the non-smoker? What if you don’t smoke 25 plus a day – what are your levels of monoamine and are they significant?

Why  a blog about this? Read the comments at the base of the news article, you will understand why; as smokers and vapers we have become increasingly aware of some of the tactics of the pharmaceutical companies, and are either spot on with our analysis – or way too judgmental and end up giving the conspiracy theorists a run for their money.

What do you think?

 

 

http://www.camh.net/News_events/News_releases_and_media_advisories_and_backgrounders/Meyer_MAOA_smoking.html