| Varenicline
offers much hope for smokers... |
|
The
dream of treating smoking like high cholesterol or high blood pressure
and treating it with just a single pill has proved elusive, but
maybe not for long.
With
estimated sales in the billions, the race is on to get a new drug
to market, even with the so-so record of previous attempts at designing
a chemical cure to this problem. Buprion was an early attempt at
this and was proven to be about 13% effective, not high enough to
call a genuine cure.
Where
patches, gums & lozenges work by slowly weaning the patient
off of nicotine, A new drug - Varenicline works by attaching itsself
to nicotine receptors in the brain, preventing the cravings that
drive the cigarette addiction.
Varenicline is in phase III testing, normally the final testing
stage before a company applies for FDA approval.
If
this drug can pass the approval process it can be available within
2 years.
I
will follow the approval process and post updates here.
There
is a procedure that I am investigating called "smoking
cessation and low level laser therapy"
|
Nov 15, 2005: Update
The
results are in on the Varencline trials and they don't
look that promising; actually they are downright disappointing--
A
study of 2,000 smokers was just completed and the results
are in:
22% -- smoking abstinence rate after 1 year of patients given
Varencline
16% -- smoking abstinence rate after 1 year of patients given
Zyban
8% ----smoking abstinence rate after 1 year of patients given
a placebo
Nothing
earth shattering in these figures. Bummer!
hmmmm..
where did put I those Commit lozenges?
|
I
think the Fuji S5100 is a great camera and I highly recommend it
|