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Inhaling from just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: A new study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine shows that 10 percent of youth who become hooked on cigarettes are addicted within two days of first inhaling from a cigarette, and 25 percent are addicted within a month. The study found that adolescents who smoke even just a few cigarettes per month suffer withdrawal symptoms when deprived of nicotine, a startling finding that is contrary to long-held beliefs that only people with established smoking habits of at least five cigarettes per day experience such symptoms. Recent research has revealed that the nicotine from one cigarette is enough to saturate the nicotine receptors in the human brain. In humans, nicotine-induced alterations in the brain can trigger addiction with the first cigarette," commented Joseph R. DiFranza, MD, professor of family medicine & community health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and leader of the UMMS research team. The National Institutes of Health estimates that as many as 6.4 million children who are living today will die prematurely as adults because they began to smoke cigarettes during adolescence. At first, one cigarette will relieve the craving produced by nicotine withdrawal for weeks, but as tolerance to nicotine builds, the smoker finds that he or she must smoke ever more frequently to cope with withdrawal.
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