Alzheimer's drug may nudge smokers toward quitting

Smokers sometimes report feeling a little fuzzy-headed upon trying to quit.

Researchers attribute this to nicotine withdrawal, as nicotine is known to bind to receptors in the brain that are involved with feelings of reward and alertness.

So with that in mind, University of Pennsylvania researchers tried giving smokers drugs that latch onto the same receptors, to see if it would help them quit. These acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, such as Aricept, already are approved for treating a condition associated with longer-term mental decline: Alzheimer's disease.

In a study in the journal Translational Psychiatry, the Penn team found that the drugs may nudge smokers a bit toward being able to break the habit.

Over a two-week period, study participants who took one of the drugs smoked 2.3 fewer cigarettes a day than their baseline amount.

Participants who were given a placebo, meanwhile, smoked 1.3 fewer cigarettes a day than their baseline amount.

Though the differences between the groups were modest, researchers saw promise in one additional result:

Smokers who took the drugs also reported reduced satisfaction and reward from smoking.

The research paper also included results of studying the same drugs in rats. The authors are at Penn's School of Nursing and its Perelman School of Medicine.

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