Nicotine decreases food intake through activation of POMC neurons.
Mineur YS, Abizaid A, Rao Y, Salas R, DiLeone RJ, Gündisch D, Diano S, De Biasi M, Horvath TL, Gao XB, Picciotto MR.
Smoking decreases appetite, and smokers often report that they smoke to control their weight. Understanding the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the anorexic effects of smoking would facilitate the development of novel treatments to help with smoking cessation and to prevent or treat obesity. By using a combination of pharmacological, molecular genetic, electrophysiological, and feeding studies, we found that activation of hypothalamic α3β4 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors leads to activation of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons. POMC neurons and subsequent activation of melanocortin 4 receptors were critical for nicotinic-induced decreases in food intake in mice. This study demonstrates that nicotine decreases food intake and body weight by influencing the hypothalamic melanocortin system and identifies critical molecular and synaptic mechanisms involved in nicotine-induced decreases in appetite.
Science. 2011 Jun 10;332(6035):1330-2.
Mineur YS, Abizaid A, Rao Y, Salas R, DiLeone RJ, Gündisch D, Diano S, De Biasi M, Horvath TL, Gao XB, Picciotto MR.
Smoking decreases appetite, and smokers often report that they smoke to control their weight. Understanding the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the anorexic effects of smoking would facilitate the development of novel treatments to help with smoking cessation and to prevent or treat obesity. By using a combination of pharmacological, molecular genetic, electrophysiological, and feeding studies, we found that activation of hypothalamic α3β4 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors leads to activation of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons. POMC neurons and subsequent activation of melanocortin 4 receptors were critical for nicotinic-induced decreases in food intake in mice. This study demonstrates that nicotine decreases food intake and body weight by influencing the hypothalamic melanocortin system and identifies critical molecular and synaptic mechanisms involved in nicotine-induced decreases in appetite.
Science. 2011 Jun 10;332(6035):1330-2.
Why is this cool?
SMOKING IS GOOD...for something. There has been a lot of talk about cancer and emphysema associated with cigarettes and all that data is pretty conclusive, but what if cigarettes actually did some good?! People have known that smokers are usually skinny and wily, but why?
Turns out smokin' activates your brain to be less hungry. So, when you see someone bad mouthing cancer sticks, you tell them that you're losing weight in an all natural way because going to the gym is unnatural. Animals don't gym and they are as natural as it gets. They just keep it trim and smoke all the time.
What did the researchers do? They say that through "a combination of pharmacological, molecular genetic, electrophysiological, and feeding studies" they were able to see activation of "pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons." I don't know anything about these neurons or neurobiology, so I can not say exactly what that means. What I can say is that they have found a mechanism by which nicotine intake affects appetite and that is stellar!
What does this mean for the future? Maybe this research will be a drug and just like multivitamins people will take them everyday to stay slim. Gyms would go out of business because the pill would keep people slender and they would not feel the urge to break themselves on an elliptical.
The government could enforce the pill and bring down rising healthcare costs attributed to obesity! Imagine that being on insurers may do the same because costs associated with obesity are so high. Are the financial costs of obesity so much higher than those attributed to smoking as to justify heavy taxes on sweets and high calorie foods while lowering taxes on and regulations of smoking? A skinny world could be perfection...maybe.
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