Medications to help stop smoking | Ask A Psychiatrist

Medications to help stop smoking | Ask A Psychiatrist
Medications to help stop smoking are available. They can help someone addicted to nicotine, and who wants to quit smoking, to raise their odds for success.
In this video, Dr. Sara Dugan briefly talks about the history of tobacco use and reviews the medications that help stop smoking. She discusses how they work and evaluates their rates of success.
Tobacco has been used for over 8000 years for both religious and medicinal purposes. But it’s also caused troubles for a long time. People have been writing about how tobacco causes breathing problems -- and about how hard it is to quit -- since as early as the 1600s.
Tobacco use remains a problem for many people. Over half of people who try cigarettes will become daily smokers, according to a study from Max Birge and colleagues from Queen Mary University London.
Tobacco use accounts for over 5 million premature deaths every year.
Technically, it’s not the tobacco that’s addictive. It’s the nicotine found in tobacco that causes the addiction-like behavior. These days, people are as likely to become addicted to vaping as to traditional tobacco problems.
Whether from vaping or from smoking, nicotine is an addictive chemical.
Like most addictive chemicals, nicotine leads to the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine - the feel-good chemical. This creates a brief feeling of contentment and pleasure. After you’ve smoked a few times nicotine begins to weaken your ability to feel pleasure, causing you to need more nicotine to sustain the good feelings. That’s how you develop the habit.
Quitting smoking (or quitting vaping) can be difficult. On the other hand, several approved treatments for smoking cessation exist. Medication treatment options to help stop smoking include: Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT); Bupropion and Varenicline.
In this video, Dr. Dugan explains the differences between these treatment options.
NRT gives you nicotine - in the form of gum, patches, sprays, inhalers, or lozenges - but not the other harmful chemicals in tobacco.
Bupropion doesn’t contain nicotine and works by stimulating the release of dopamine so it can help with some of the withdrawal symptoms and cravings.
Varenicline does partly stimulate the nicotine receptors. This mimics the effects of nicotine to reduce cravings and withdrawal effects when you stop smoking.
Dr. Dugan goes over the possible side effects of the NRT, Bupropion and Varenicline as well as uses recent studies to demonstrate how effective each treatment option is.
⌛ Video Chapters ⌛
00:00 Pharmacotherapy of tobacco use disorder
00:17 objectives
00:49 tobacco
04:48 Tobacco use in Patients with mental illness
06:04 Conditions associated with tobacco use
06:46 Pharmacologic Treatment Options
07:00 Pharmacologic Targets of Treatment
08:24 Nicotine Replacement Products
13:07 Bupropion
17:44 Varenicline
25:03 A role for Electronic Cigarettes

[@kotenoklelu3471]

Vaping is good. Start with big dosage of nicotine to go out of cigarettes. Then slowly reduce dosage of nicotine in vaping liquid. Nicotine is bad for sleep.

[@nickjohn2051]

Vaping is like drinking beer instead of hard cider. You still get hooked with addiction.

[@CBQMethod]

Dr. Dugan, why are you stating, "Whether from vaping or from smoking nicotine is an addictive chemical," then proceed to recommend people use Nicotine Replacement Therapy to quit smoking or vaping?