Nicotine Vaccine Makes Your Liver Destroy the Drug Before It Takes Effect
Smoking Kills Challiyil Eswaramangalath Vipin via WikimediaBy destroying nicotine before it reaches the heart and brain, a new vaccine could mute the addictiveness of tobacco products Nicotine addiction is a hard habit to break. But what if you could never get hooked in the first place? Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York report in the journal Science Translational Medicine that they have developed a potential vaccine for nicotine addiction. In mice, the vaccine inhibits the effects of nicotine before they reach the heart or brain, making it seem as though the nicotine never entered the bloodstream. The vaccine works by using the liver to churn out a steady flow of antibodies that destroy nicotine as it enters the bloodstream, before it can make the circulatory loop to the brain and the heart. Previous therapies have proven effective at doing this, but they have to be administered on a...