14 DAY TRIAL // As strange as it may seem to many people, it seems that a recent study conducted by scientists at the Duke University Medical Center have trial-based evidence that nicotine may ease depression symptoms in non-smokers.
But researchers do not encourage non-smokers to start practicing the bad habit and not even to wear nicotine-patches, chew nicotine gum etc. They simply suggest that nicotine can have beneficial effects upon human health (as long as it is not used in cigarettes) and reducing depression may be one of them.
"The hope is that our research on nicotine will spur the development of new treatments for depression, which is a huge public health problem. Our study also provides evidence that smokers may indeed smoke, in part, to improve their mood - a notion that has been quite controversial in the field," stated lead researcher Joseph McClernon, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor of Medical Psychiatry at the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research.
The team writing in the Psychopharmacology journal noted that depression patients are twice as likely to take up smoking and also have reduced chances of kicking the bad habit afterwards. "Smokers may be more prone to depression than nonsmokers. Or, people with depression may be self-medicating by smoking, albeit in a deadly way," pointed out Edward Levin, Ph.D., who was involved in the study.
On the other hand, the study investigated how 11 non-smoking subjects presenting depression symptoms acted after wearing nicotine patches for a certain period of time. Results found that participants in the study who wore nicotine patches for at least 8 days showed an improvement in their depression symptoms. This may be due to the fact that nicotine stimulates the same brain areas which promote good mood and wellbeing states in people, researchers said. "The same areas of the brain that are stimulated by nicotine appear to be involved in the regulation of mood," they wrote.