“Smoking is dangerous to your health.” This warning found in cigarette boxes is not for naught and a recent study published in the February issue of Chest suggests yet another ill effect of smoking. According to Dr. Naresh M. Punjabi and his research colleagues, smoking can cause poor sleep quality.

Punjabi, one of the authors of the study, points out that those who smoke are more likely to feel tired when awake and they spend less time in deep sleep than those who do not smoke. This can be attributed to the fact that smokers go through nicotine withdrawal each night, therefore causing sleep disturbances.

Sleep patterns between 40 smokers and 40 nonsmokers were observed and the researches noted that 22.5 percent of smokers lack restful sleep, compared with only 5 percent of nonsmokers. The study also indicated that the effects of nicotine are strongest in the early stages of sleep, decreasing when the sleep cycle progresses.

Although this study may be the most recent one to make the connection between smoking and sleep quality, previous research has already charted the influence of nicotine on sleep.

In the Xlibris book “Advances in Nicotine Research: a Century of Progress, 1900-1999”, pharmacology and toxicology professors Peter P. Rowell and Laurence A. Carr chronicle the breakthroughs made in the 1900s in understanding the actions of nicotine, the most widely used drug in the world. Everything from the initial use of nicotine as a therapeutic agent, its chemical make up, its distribution to the brain, to its metabolism and elimination from the body is taken up in this self-published book.

Advances in Nicotine Research also follows the progression of the research on nicotine from the mid-1900s and onward, presenting significant discoveries about the drug and its effects on neurotransmitters in the brain. Rowell and Carr then address the way nicotine influences cognitive and non-cognitive behavior such as sleep, learning, muscle activity and self-administration.

Finally, Rowell and Carr conclude their research by categorizing the advances made in understanding the contribution of nicotine to tobacco use and cigarette smoking – further painting a not so lovely image of how this drug affects human behavior.

More on the interesting and informative Advances in Nicotine Research can be found at the Amazon and Xlibris online bookstores.


About the Authors
Doctors P. Rowell and Laurence A. Carr are Professors of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. They have been involved in research on nicotine and its actions in the brain for over twenty-five years and have collaborated on many studies and scientific publications. In particular, their investigations on the effects of nicotine on brain monoamine oxidase activity, receptor inactivation, and dopamine release have been instrumental in advancing the understanding of nicotine’s role in cigarette smoking and the possibilities of using nicotine or nicotine analogs as therapeutic agents.