Can tobacco affect our brain?

I read about tobacco and brain from NIDA Info Facts. Everybody must read this. How Does Tobacco Affect the Brain?

Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco—including cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, and chewing tobacco—contain the addictive drug nicotine. Nicotine is readily absorbed into the bloodstream when a tobacco product is chewed, inhaled, or smoked. A typical smoker will take 10 puffs on a cigarette over a period of 5 minutes that the cigarette is lit. Thus, a person who smokes about 1 1/2 packs (30 cigarettes) daily gets 300 “hits” of nicotine each day.

Upon entering the bloodstream, nicotine immediately stimulates the adrenal glands to release the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline). Epinephrine stimulates the central nervous system and increases blood pressure, respiration, and heart rate. Glucose is released into the blood while nicotine suppresses insulin output from the pancreas, which means that smokers have chronically elevated blood sugar levels.

Like cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, nicotine increases levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which affects the brain pathways that control reward and pleasure. For many tobacco users, long-term brain changes induced by continued nicotine exposure result in addiction—a condition of compulsive drug seeking and use, even in the face of negative consequences. Studies suggest that additional compounds in tobacco smoke, such as acetaldehyde, may enhance nicotine’s effects on the brain. A number of studies indicate that adolescents are especially vulnerable to these effects and may be more likely than adults to develop an addiction to tobacco.

When an addicted user tries to quit, he or she experiences withdrawal symptoms including powerful cravings for tobacco, irritability, difficulty paying attention, sleep disturbances, and increased appetite. Treatments can help smokers manage these symptoms and improve the likelihood of successfully quitting.

Apart from this the risk of lung cancer and other cancers are also there. All these are good arguments to stop smoking or to avoid all forms of tobacco.

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a condition which affects the brain. The temporal, occipital or frontal brain lobes are the commonly affected areas. This leads to different type of seizure because these lobes do different functions in the brain.

The cells in our brain, known as neurons, communicate with each other by using electrical impulses. During a seizure or fit, these electrical impulses are disrupted, and this can cause the brain and the body to behave strangely.

The common causes of epilepsy include:

• A genetic condition
• Problems during birth
• Brain damage from a stroke or a head injury
• An infection of the brain, for example meningitis
• Inherited condition
• Brain damage from alcohol or other drugs of abuse
• Brain damage from toxic substances

People with epilepsy can experience any of the varieties of seizures, although most people follow a consistent pattern of symptoms. This pattern is known as an epilepsy syndrome.

The common epilepsy symptoms include:

• Repeated seizures
• Partial seizures – both simple and complex partial seizures
• Generalised seizures
• Atonic seizures
• Tonic – clonic seizures
• Absence seizures
• Nocturnal seizures
• Myoclonic seizures

There are more than 40 types of epilepsy and seizure. All have different symptoms.

EEG, MRI and CT scans are the methods used by the doctors for the diagnosis of epilepsy.

There are many drugs, antiepileptic drugs which could stop fits. It can be a single drug therapy or multydrugs therapy.
Surgery is another option but the doctors have to decide this if medicines are not helping.

What to do if someone has a seizure? In most cases medical help is not needed, but if the fits last longer than five minutes medical help is needed. If it is the first fits then also medical help is needed.

If you are with someone who is having fits (tonic-clonic seizure) you should do:

• Move the person away from the things which could cause him injury
• Loosen the clothing around the neck
• Cushion his head
• After the fits stop turn him so that he is lying on the side
• The time of the fits must be noted

Do not put anything in their mouth, the tongue bites are normally not serious and will heal within few days.

Muscle Contraction

The contraction of voluntary muscles in human beings take places by the mutual sliding of two sets of interdigitating filaments. The thick one containing the protein myosin and the thin one containing the protein actin.

Muscle contraction is controlled by the central nervous system, this means brain and spinal cord. Brain initiates the voluntary muscle contractions and spinal cord initiates the involuntary reflexes.

There are three types of muscle tissues in our body and they are skeletal, cardiac and smooth, the blood vessels muscles. The skeletal muscles are in charge of our movement.

Coming to the problem of Sakthikkumaran V. the back pain in the lower part has many reasons, overweight and obesity and less physical activity.

The human beings are created by God to walk with four legs. The spinal cord is produced by God to this purpose. In the evolution we have two legs and two hands. This has several advantages and few disadvantages. The major disadvantage is the problems with the spinal cord. It is actually the problems of the small muscles supporting the spines. Because of its unnatural upright position these muscles hardens and gets damaged. There starts the problem with the nerves touch the sharp bones. We have to stretch our spinal cord everyday. The 160 muscles what we have in the back must work everyday properly and we must help them by stretching.

You have to talk to your orthopaedic doctor and physiotherapist. In cases where the damage is already there the neorologist is the expert to do the treatment with others together.

For the last 60 years I am physically handicapped with almost no muscles in my legs. Even today, with 62 years I have no back pain. The reason is the good physiotherapist who taught me this simple exercises after my foot-correction operation in 1974. It is only five minutes exercise of stretching the spinal cord and the small muscles which support it.

Am I expecting too much from you all for your health? 2010 is going to begin soon and start doing this exercise from 1st January 2010.

We talk always about the villain cholesterol, why we need cholesterol?

It is a very good question, without cholesterol there is no human life, no sex differences and nothing. At least 20% of our brain tissues are made up of cholesterol. It is so important for the brain and is produced there, in the head, only.

Liver has also high amount of cholesterol. It is also produced in liver and it is important for our body like sodium so that a part of it is reabsorbed back to our blood before excretion.

Cholesterol is used in the synthesis of male and female sexual hormones and with the help of sunlight vitamin D is synthesized in our skin. All the other hormones that have the steroidal structure are also from cholesterol, e.g. Hydrocortisone.

Cholesterol is made as villain by the pharmaceutical companies and food processing industries for their own interest to earn lot of money. It is the LDL or the oxidised cholesterol is bad for our health.

Cooking and frying in high temperature make the cholesterol to react with oxygen from our atmosphere. Eat a lot of vegetables and fruits; reduce the amount of milk, milk products, meat and meat products. Avoid other risk factors such as smoking, excessive drinking, over- weight and high homocysteine levels and then you will have no problem with cholesterol.

But, the problem may come if you have genetically influenced disturbances of cholesterol and fat metabolism.