61–70 of 246 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alcohol: Anxiety disorders Marijuana: OCD Caffeine: ADHD
Or just MJ for everything
Tangential self experimentation anecdote: I was intrigued by reports that nicotine can improve cognition in otherwise healthy people so I read through as many studies/articles I could find online. After deciding that I'd done enough research I took the plunge and began self experimenting with 2mg gum. I took it daily throughout the day at regular-ish intervals for around 2-3 months. The affects I experienced were as…
This makes me wonder what the modern world would look like if all "recreational drugs" suddenly disappeared, and so all the people who were implicitly, unknowingly self-medicating for a mental illness by using recreational drugs, suddenly weren't. What percentage of the population would go from seemingly neurotypical, to perceivably mentally ill? How much more common would conditions like schizophrenia be?
The effect on the underlying conditions are relatively small - otherwise we would have noticed that nicotine is a cure for schizophrenia. So the addicted will get slightly improvements from their drug. Some of them enough to reduce their chance of a clinical diagnosis. Most people won't be close enough to (the very blurry) line to swap between diagnosed and subclinical.
Your comment assumes the psychiatric profession is generally meretricious and evidence-driven. Many psychiatric patients' experience suggests otherwise.
“This defines a completely novel strategy for medication development,” says lead author As someone with schizoaffective problems and raging ADHD, I find quotes like this acutely annoying. I've told every psychiatrist I'eve ever dealt with about the experiential costs/benefits of smoking (and consuming various other recreational drugs). They all nod sagely and say things like 'but smoking is bad' (no shit Sherlock!) w…
I find M.D.'s to be alarmingly low in intellectual curiosity.
Tangential self experimentation anecdote: I was intrigued by reports that nicotine can improve cognition in otherwise healthy people so I read through as many studies/articles I could find online. After deciding that I'd done enough research I took the plunge and began self experimenting with 2mg gum. I took it daily throughout the day at regular-ish intervals for around 2-3 months. The affects I experienced were as…
That's pretty characteristic of out-of-control blood pressure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clarifying: Nicotine harms everyone. Net harm to a schizophrenic may be negative, but they are still harmed. "Self-medication hypotheses" exist for many abused substances. Rather than accusing the addicted of poor education, self control, or intelligence it argues (with mounting evidence) that there is a structural or genetic issue that contributes for some addictions. Ideally we would figure out the mechanism of act…
Bullshit. Nicotine in itself doesn't harm anyone, that's completely made up. On the contrary, a lot of people would be helped by getting more Nicotine into their system, preferably from eating veggies rather than smoking it.
Tangential self experimentation anecdote: I was intrigued by reports that nicotine can improve cognition in otherwise healthy people so I read through as many studies/articles I could find online. After deciding that I'd done enough research I took the plunge and began self experimenting with 2mg gum. I took it daily throughout the day at regular-ish intervals for around 2-3 months. The affects I experienced were as…
It has several properties. It's both a stimulant and a relaxant. It helps you focus without burning out your neurons and inducing psychosis like amphetamines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Psychoactive_effects
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Enhancing_performance
While there is some risk to it, the actual danger (cancer, heart attack, stroke) from smoking is due to the tar content and other products of combustion from burning tobacco. While nicotine doesn't help blood pressure, it's not the killer that smoking is. It's also somewhat carcinogenic -- again, not as much as tobacco smoke and tar itself. You can find 80 and 90 year old smoking, but you can't really find elderly using cocaine, for example. As far as drugs go, it's relatively safe, for the benefits that it provides.
Also, there are several MAOIs in tobacco smoke. MAOIs are used as last-line anti-depressants, because of their side-effects when taken in large doses. But with tobacco products, a user basically gets a tritrateable MAOI.
If we suddenly discovered nicotine today, I'm convinced that either it or a close chemical cousin would be a the next miracle drug for anxiety and depression.
Perhaps there is a molecular relative of nicotine that could be employed as such, perhaps with less side-effects.
Tangential self experimentation anecdote: I was intrigued by reports that nicotine can improve cognition in otherwise healthy people so I read through as many studies/articles I could find online. After deciding that I'd done enough research I took the plunge and began self experimenting with 2mg gum. I took it daily throughout the day at regular-ish intervals for around 2-3 months. The affects I experienced were as…
Why not just get more, higher quality sleep? It provides all of the upsides that you mention with no downsides.
That Schizophrenia patients smoke a lot is well known. I guess this explains it. The other weird Schizophrenia fact is that blind people are never Schizophrenic. Congenital Blindness, that is. Poking your eyes out won't cure Schizophrenia once you have it.
That is an interesting observation. Do you have a source?