I saw a rheumatologist today. He told me that he had got people off of narcotics and alcohol, but had had little luck in getting people to stop smoking. He said that the nicotine receptors in the brain were the very strongest. Stronger that the receptors for the strongest narcotics.
He wants me to try it. He didn't mention the name of this new drug, but I think this is it:
A new stop-smoking drug appears to work better than drugs currently on the market, but it's likely that no pill will ever be 100 per cent effective, scientists say.
Three studies published this week suggest that varenicline, a new smoking cessation drug developed by Pfizer, is more effective in the short term than Zyban, manufactured by rival GlaxoSmithKline.
However, an editorial accompanying the studies cautions that varenicline is no miracle drug and most people who took it during the studies did not stop smoking.
Pfizer funded all three of the studies, published in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Varenicline stimulates nicotine receptors enough to release dopamine in the brain, reducing the craving for cigarettes and the withdrawal effects, but not so much that it is itself addictive
