Quit smoking avoid the munchies
Could a drug that blocks the brain’s cannabinoid (CB1) receptors help people stop smoking without gaining weight? According to a Cochrane Systematic Review, just 20 mg of CB1 antagonist rimonabant each day helps quitters and also helps them avoid the munchies.
Smoking tobacco sends nicotine into the blood stream, and this chemical disrupts the endocannabinoid system, part of the hormonal control mechanism in the brain that controls energy balance and food intake. Over time the body alters the nature of its energy mechanism to compensate for this effect. When you quit smoking, the nicotine withdrawal disturbs this mechanism, causing withdrawal symptoms and leaving a person prone to put on weight.
Unfortunately for smokers who want to quite and stay slim, rimonabant is yet to be approved for this use in the USA or Europe.
InChI=1/C22H21Cl3N4O/c1-14-20(22(30)27-28-11-3-2-4-12-28)26-29(19-10-9-17(24)13-18(19)25)21(14)15-5-7-16(23)8-6-15/h5-10,13H,2-4,11-12H2,1H3,(H,27,30)/f/h27H
Read the full story here...
This post originally appeared in full in David Bradley's ChemSpider.com hosted Spinneret blog (geddit?). Hopefully, any molecular structures and links are hooking up to the Chemspider database correctly, please let us know if you have problems with mol files, InChI code etc
If you're lucky, the following quote may be relevant in some way to the post above, but then again...
i have not been smoking for about 2 years now thanks to nicotine patches and a lot of self-discipline. the withdrawal symptoms i got from quitting smoking was not nice though.
When my wife got pregnant, I got serious about finding a way to stop smoking. I mean, it was one thing when it was just my health I was risking – I always went outside to smoke, so that my wife wouldn’t get second hand smoke. But now that we have a little one on the way, it’s different. I want to be around to see her grow up, get her first tooth, get married, all of those things. I don’t want to miss out, so I’m going to stop smoking. Better for my health, better for hers, and better for my wife’s.