Nicotine – What It Does To Your Body
The tobacco plant uses nicotine to protect itself from predators, as it is a powerful insecticide.
We all only know nicotine from cigarettes, but before humans discovered the effects it has on them, it was invented by Mother Nature to protect plants from predators.
Today the components of nicotine that are deadly to insects are synthetically produced and processed into insecticides in pesticides.
What is nicotine exactly?
It is not only produced in tobacco plants, other nightshade plants also produce it.
The nightshade family also includes potatoes and tomatoes, so they also contain, albeit extremely small amounts.
It is very poisonous to insects, which plants that produce nicotine use to protect themselves from being “nibbled on”.
Because the substance is easily biodegradable, it was often used as an insecticide. However, because pure is extremely toxic, it was banned as a pesticide as early as the 1970s and replaced by synthetically produced “nicotinoids”.
How toxic is it to humans?
What makes people consume an insecticide that was banned more than 40 years ago because of its extreme toxicity?
What happens in the human organism and how dangerous is the substance really? As always, that’s how the dose makes the poison …
If you ingest it in the form of tobacco smoke in only small doses, the substance has a stimulating effect in the brain after just 10 seconds.
The smoker feels full of new energy after the first few puffs.
If the dosage increases, so the cigarette slowly comes to an end, the stimulating effect disappears and turns into relaxation, but already then harmful effects begin to set in, such as an increase in blood pressure.
At higher doses, serious symptoms of intoxication such as nausea and vomiting appear.
For children, swallowing two cigarettes can cause damage; for adults, the threshold value for really life-threatening poisoning is around 500mg.
An average cigarette contains around 12mg, but every smoker ingests different amounts of it, depending on the depth of the inhalation.
Is it carcinogenic?
Every child knows that smoking cigarettes increases the risk of lung cancer.
What few smokers know, however, is that not “only” smoke and its pollutants cause cancer in the lungs, but also that , as a cancer-promoting substance, it favors the development of other types of cancer.
Studies have shown that people who had cancer and continued smoking made their illness worse because of the nicotine in cigarettes (or nicotine patches).
It prevents the rapid breakdown of harmful cells that have been killed by chemotherapy and even promotes the formation of new pathological tissue, since nicotine causes the blood vessels to form faster and thus cancerous ulcers can be supplied with nutrients “quickly”.
What is it in?
Everyone immediately thinks of cigarettes, but other luxury foods also contain nicotine.
There is nothing else in Grandpa’s pipe than tobacco, and snuff and chewing tobacco consumers take it in.
Those who do not smoke tobacco but consume it in a different way do without the harmful effects of tobacco smoke, but often ingest a higher dose of the active ingredient.
Especially with chewing tobacco, a lot of nicotine is transported very quickly into the body through the oral mucous membrane.
What exactly happens in the body?
Those who smoke cigarettes usually no longer notice what exactly is going on in the body when nicotine takes effect.
After just 10 seconds after the first puff, the active ingredient has reached the brain and immediately takes care of many of the body’s own processes:
- Stimulates dopamine production for a calming feeling
- Stimulation of the “reward center” in the brain
- Increase in gastric juice production
- Stimulation of the bowel movement
- Increase in heart rate by releasing adrenaline
- Increased breakdown of blood sugar and free fatty acids
- Decrease in appetite due to mild nausea
- Increase in blood pressure due to narrowing of the blood vessels
- Decrease in the urge to urinate
- Promotion of thrombosis due to increased blood clotting
- Increase in breathing rate
- Increase in sensitivity to pain
Nicotine is broken down in the body via the liver and has a half-life of around two hours.
While it is still being broken down, the body asks for the next cigarette in order to maintain the feeling of wellbeing. The addiction takes its course …
If a smoker cannot offer his body the dose he is accustomed to, the person becomes restless, irritated and unable to concentrate.
These are the first signs of withdrawal. If you want to quit smoking, you should also say goodbye to nicotine and not rely on aids such as nicotine patches in the long term.
