Newvaccine could fight nicotine addiction
Cigarette smokers who are having trouble quitting because of nicotine’s addictive power may some day be able to receive a novel antibody-producing vaccine to help them kick the habit.
The average cigarette contains about 4 000 different chemicals that — when burned and inhaled — cause the serious health problems associated with smoking. But it is the nicotine in cigarettes that, like other addictive substances, stimulates rewards centers in the brain and hooks smokers to the pleasurable but dangerous routine.
Ronald Crystal, who chairs the department of genetic medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College in New York, where researchers are developing a nicotine vaccine, said the idea is to stimulate the smoker’s immune system to produce antibodies or immune proteins to destroy the nicotine molecule before it reaches the brain.
BERMAN, J. Disponível em: www.voanews.com. Acesso em: 2 jul. 2012.
