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HomeTopicsNicotine And The Body
Nicotine and the BodyNicotine, an organic liquid comprised of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and sometimes oxygen, is a compound that occurs naturally in the tobacco plant. The medical community has deemed nicotine a drug due to its addictive properties, as well as its negative effects on the body. Although the amount of nicotine a given tobacco product contains will vary from product to product, on average, a cigarette tends to include anywhere from 8 to 20 mg of nicotine. Of this, about 1 mg enters the body.
While many of us know that nicotine is one of the primary addictive components in tobacco products, fewer of us are aware of precisely how nicotine affects and damages the body.
How Nicotine Enters the BodyNicotine can enter the body in any of the following three ways:
The way nicotine enters your body depends on the type of tobacco product you use. For example, while cigarettes transport nicotine to the body via the lungs, chewing tobacco allows nicotine to infiltrate the body through the mucous membranes (i.e. the gums). Similarly, nicotine patches transfer nicotine to the body through the cell receptors on the skin's surface. Of these three options, the lungs remain the most common way that people ingest tobacco and nicotine, meaning that cigarettes are the most popular type of tobacco products.
How Nicotine Works in the BodyOnce nicotine has entered the body, it immediately gets into the bloodstream, giving it access to all of the major organs of your body, including your brain. In fact, about 10 to 15 seconds after the first puff of a cigarette, smokers will usually start to feel the effects of nicotine.
What tobacco users feel when they ingest nicotine is the result of their bodies' releasing the adrenaline hormone, which causes:
The increased presence of adrenaline in the blood also triggers the release of stored glucose, providing tobacco users with a short-term energy boost. Simultaneously, nicotine suppresses the pancreas' release of insulin, preventing the body from re-storing released glucose. This ultimately suppresses tobacco users' appetites. Another biological effect of nicotine lies in its ability to slightly raise your "at rest," or basal, metabolic rate. Although some may, as a result, see using tobacco as a quick way to loose weight, keep in mind that nicotine has a vast number of associated negative side effects that far outweigh any possible weight loss benefit. Given the dramatic ways in which nicotine alters the body chemistry, it's no wonder that the nicotine in tobacco is so habit forming. Anyone who has been around an irritable tobacco user who can't get a nicotine fix has seen just how powerful the physical addiction to nicotine can be.
How the Body Gets Rid of NicotineAfter ingesting nicotine, traceable amounts of this drug will remain in the body for about 6 hours. During this time, the body disposes of nicotine by:
As nicotine levels drop in the body, addicts will reach for another cigarette or more of their preferred tobacco product to boost the nicotine levels in their bodies once again. The only way to break your physical and psychological dependence on nicotine is to quit using tobacco. Resources Meeker-O'Connell, Anne (n.d.). How Nicotine Works. Retrieved January 2, 2008 from the HowStuffWorks Website: http://health.howstuffworks.com/nicotine.htm.
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