Nicotine Vaccine

According to the American Cancer Society, about 46 million adults smoke. Another 8.6 million Americans are living with a serious illness caused by smoking. While there are many ways to quit smoking, most people will relapse. Now, doctors may have found a vaccine to help smokers stop for good.

Wayne Thompson has been lighting up for 35 years, but with two new grandchildren on the way, he says he's ready to quit. '"With the grandbabies coming, I don't want to be subjecting them to second-hand smoke."

Thompson enrolled in a study on a vaccine that could help him quit. It's one of few smoking vaccines to make it to human trials. For the study, he will get eight shots and answer questions about his experience.

Psychologist Dorothy Hatsukami, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, says the vaccine stimulates the immune system to make antibodies that stop nicotine in its tracks. '"These antibodies actually attach themselves to the nicotine molecules, and this complex is so large it can't pass through the blood/brain barrier, and so this nicotine cannot get into the brain," she tells Ivanhoe.

Since nicotine cannot reach the brain, smokers don't experience its pleasurable effects. The goal is to make smokers lose interest in smoking so it just becomes like smoking a cigarette that has no nicotine in it.

Some smokers in the study will receive the vaccine, while others will get a placebo. Thompson says he hasn't yet noticed a difference, but he believes the vaccine is a step in the right direction. Still, he knows the decision to quit is up to him. He says, '"You've got to make the determination yourself. You've got to say, ‘I am going to do it.'"

Doctors hope this study will help them find the most effective dose of the vaccine and how often smokers need it. Preliminary studies show it's safe in humans, but doctors want more tests.

Content provided by ArmMed Media
Revision date: 12 December 2007
Last revised by Amalia K. Gagarina, M.S., R.D.