Whats good...not smoking

It seems like everything is good. It's starting to snow, clementines are back in season and of course science is rocking and rolling. A few interesting studies recently came out about smoking.

Turns out that the first morning cigarette, the one that gets the day going, might be the one that is worst for you. A study at Penn State showed that smokers who had a cigarette within 30 minutes of waking up had a higher level of the nicotine metabolite cotinine (shown on right). The majority of inhaled nicotine is broken down by liver enzymes to cotinine, which serves as a marker of tobacco levels in the blood. Previous research has correlated gender, race and smoking intensity with cotinine levels. This study suggests that the metabolic state of your body might be an important variable in nicotine absorption. The authors admitted that the intensity of inhalation might be the key factor, it just may be that groggy people smoke harder. Either way, if you can't quit cold turkey at least drop that first smoke.

A second study, published in the Environmental Health Perspectives, found DNA from hundreds of bacteria in the content of four popular brand cigarettes. This is the first study to show that cigarettes are contaminated with bacterial human pathogens. Bacteria are everywhere, and further research is needed to explore the feasibility of infection from these organism, but still this is pretty gross.

A joke at every end:

A man walks in to see an eye doctor and says,
"Hey doc, I need some help with my eyes, I think they are getting worse."
The doctor nods his head and says "well ok, let's start with an eye exam. Can you see this sign?"
"What sign?" asks the man.
"The sign that is hanging on this wall," replies the doc.
"What wall?" asks the man.

The Art of Chemistry

To the science of chemistry
In the pursuit of truth
To the art of chemistry
For the welfare of man
To the teaching of youth
In a science
Ministrant of sciences

(quote from the Baker Hall, the home of chemistry, at Cornell University)

It is often difficult to write about science because it moves so fast. Often, a breakthrough one day will be overshadowed by a new story the next. This momentum is important and drives progress. I hope that this blog lets me calm my imagination and put in context some of the things that are in the science air.

Aspirin (pictured on the right) is a wonder drug. It stops headaches, improves outcomes from heart attacks and now can decrease the rate of colon cancer. In a story published last week, 500 people with Lynch syndrome were given aspirin and 500 more were not. Lynch syndrome predisposes one to colon cancer, and in the group taking aspirin the rates of colon cancer decreased.

Despite all the benefit, aspirin would not pass through the intensive drug approval process today. The effect of aspirin is achieved by inhibition of an enzyme called cyclooxygenase (COX) which itself leads to the synthesis of prostaglandins (PG). While inhibition of COX has many positive outcomes it also decreases a specific PG which is responsible for limiting the effect of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. This side effect leads to internal bleeding and would most likely cause a discontinuation of a clinical trial.

Hippocrates used bark from the willow tree as a pain reliever around 500 B.C. The active ingredient was salicylic acid (shown right). This compound was an even worse irritant to the stomach than aspirin. Felix Hoffman added an acetyl group to salicylic acid in 1897 and aspirin was born. We are lucky that a compound like this was discovered in tree bark and also that a scientist came along early enough to push through a drug that now is taken by over 100 million people.

A question lingers, though. Are there compounds currently that are failing safety profiles that could have, one day, the positive contribution of aspirin?

A joke at every end:
What animal do you not want to play cards with?
A cheetah.