Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0037315 (sleep apnea)
 8,000 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Nicotine in tobacco brings illness and death to millions of people. Yet nicotine in its pure form has the potential to be a valuable pharmaceutical agent. Nicotine fairly specifically binds to the cholinergic nicotinic gating site on cationic ion channels in receptors throughout the body. This action stimulates the release of a variety of neurotransmitters including especially catecholamines and serotonin. When chronically taken, nicotine may result in: (1) positive reinforcement, (2) negative reinforcement, (3) reduction of body weight, (4) enhancement of performance, and protection against; (5) Parkinson's disease (6) Tourette's disease (7) Alzheimers disease, (8) ulcerative colitis and (9) sleep apnea. The reliability of these effects varies greatly but justifies the search for more therapeutic applications for this interesting compound.
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PMID:Beneficial effects of nicotine. 185 21

Nicotine maintains tobacco addiction and has therapeutic utility to aid smoking cessation and possibly to treat other medical diseases. Nicotine acts on nicotinic cholinergic receptors, which demonstrate diversity in subunit structure, function, and distribution within the nervous system, presumably mediating the complex actions of nicotine described in tobacco users. The effects of nicotine in people are influenced by the rate and route of dosing and by the development of tolerance. The metabolism of nicotine is now well characterized in humans. A few individuals with deficient C-oxidation of nicotine, unusually slow metabolism of nicotine, and little generation of cotinine have been described. Nicotine affects most organ systems in the body, although its contribution to smoking-related disease is still unclear. Nicotine as a medication is currently available as a gum, a transdermal delivery device, and a nasal spray, all of which are used for smoking cessation. Nicotine is also being investigated for therapy of ulcerative colitis, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Tourette's syndrome, sleep apnea, and attention deficit disorder.
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PMID:Pharmacology of nicotine: addiction and therapeutics. 872 3