Treatment of Nicotine Withdrawal
Track Code: 2017-002
Executive Summary:
General Description:
Nicotine withdrawal can cause immediate discomfort and inconvenience for smokers who attempt to quit suddenly. Overnight symptoms can include strong cravings, headache, dizziness, constipation, fatigue, and stomach pain, while longer term symptoms are even more severe. Former substance abusers, and people dealing with depression, frequently face relapse into drug addictions following the abrupt cessation of tobacco use, partly as a result of withdrawal symptoms. These negative side effects can make it very difficult for people who want to break a harmful addiction to nicotine. Getting a smoker to want to quit may require a combination of behavior-modification programs and drugs, and the quitting process is then often dragged down by the experience of severe withdrawal symptoms. This is why approximately 90% of cigarette users relapse within a year of attempting to quit. With cigarette smoking being the leading cause of preventable death, an effective method of avoiding negative withdrawal symptoms is essential to saving lives.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day. Of these millions cigarette smokers, about 68.9% of them wanted to quit, and 42.7% of them attempted to quit within the past year. This leaves almost 20 million U.S. adults who could benefit from some type of remedy for nicotine withdrawal. Current remedies almost exclusively involve nicotine treatment (i.e. nicotine gum or patches), while non-nicotine treatments include the use of medications with negative side effects such as nausea, sleep problems, and seizures. Those who have effectively quit smoking benefit from lower blood carbon monoxide levels, 70% lower risk of coronary artery disease, better ability to taste and smell due to regenerated nerve endings, better blood circulation and heart function, easier time breathing, as well as a substantially lower risk of cardiac arrest, stroke and cancer of the mouth, throat, lung, kidney and pancreas.
Future Directions:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Publication PMID: 29363182, 29085297
Publications:
Inventor Bio: Ajna Hamidovic
https://pharmacy.uic.edu/people-resources/directory/ahamidov
Executive Summary:
- Invention Type: Therapeutic
- Technology Summary Link: https://www.flintbox.com/public/project/31181/
- Research Institute: University of New Mexico
- Disease Focus: Mental Health (Smoking)
- Basis of Invention: An intranasal treatment to aid smokers in the early phases of quitting by decreasing nicotine cravings and increasing cortisol levels – a naturally produced hormone which can help the body maintain homeostasis and carry out its normal functions
- How it works: This method of treatment capitalizes on the treatment’s positive effects on the brain and body, and does not involve any unnaturally occurring hormones
- Lead Challenge Inventor: Ajna Hamidovic
- Development Stage: STC has filed intellectual property on this exciting new technology and is currently exploring commercialization options
- Novelty: Benefits of nasal spray are felt much sooner than if a pill were taken, allowing more immediate symptoms to be combated
- Clinical Applications: Normalizes maladaptive-stress response caused by withdrawal of nicotine and decreases cravings, offers relief from earliest withdrawal symptoms, and restores blunted cortisol response to stress brought upon by acute withdrawal from nicotine
General Description:
Nicotine withdrawal can cause immediate discomfort and inconvenience for smokers who attempt to quit suddenly. Overnight symptoms can include strong cravings, headache, dizziness, constipation, fatigue, and stomach pain, while longer term symptoms are even more severe. Former substance abusers, and people dealing with depression, frequently face relapse into drug addictions following the abrupt cessation of tobacco use, partly as a result of withdrawal symptoms. These negative side effects can make it very difficult for people who want to break a harmful addiction to nicotine. Getting a smoker to want to quit may require a combination of behavior-modification programs and drugs, and the quitting process is then often dragged down by the experience of severe withdrawal symptoms. This is why approximately 90% of cigarette users relapse within a year of attempting to quit. With cigarette smoking being the leading cause of preventable death, an effective method of avoiding negative withdrawal symptoms is essential to saving lives.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day. Of these millions cigarette smokers, about 68.9% of them wanted to quit, and 42.7% of them attempted to quit within the past year. This leaves almost 20 million U.S. adults who could benefit from some type of remedy for nicotine withdrawal. Current remedies almost exclusively involve nicotine treatment (i.e. nicotine gum or patches), while non-nicotine treatments include the use of medications with negative side effects such as nausea, sleep problems, and seizures. Those who have effectively quit smoking benefit from lower blood carbon monoxide levels, 70% lower risk of coronary artery disease, better ability to taste and smell due to regenerated nerve endings, better blood circulation and heart function, easier time breathing, as well as a substantially lower risk of cardiac arrest, stroke and cancer of the mouth, throat, lung, kidney and pancreas.
Future Directions:
- Clinical trials
Strengths:
- Uses naturally occurring compounds
Weaknesses:
- Requires further validation
- Patent has not been issued
Publication PMID: 29363182, 29085297
Publications:
- Hamidovic A, Candelaria L, Rodriguez I, Yamada M, Nawarskas J, Burge MR. Learning and memory performance following acute intranasal insulin administration in abstinent smokers. Hum Psychopharmacol. 2018 Jan 24. doi: 10.1002/hup.2649.
- Hamidovic A. Targeting Mediators of Smoking Persistence with Intranasal Insulin. Front Pharmacol. 2017 Oct 4;8:706. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2017.00706. eCollection 2017. Review.
Inventor Bio: Ajna Hamidovic
https://pharmacy.uic.edu/people-resources/directory/ahamidov