How Nicotine Affects Focus & ADHD | Dr. John Kruse & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.320 | - So these days there's increased use of nicotine pouches,

00:00:05.320 | gums, not just smoking, vaping, dipping, and snuffing.

00:00:09.640 | And it's certainly a stimulant.

00:00:13.560 | And certainly a lot of people,

00:00:14.720 | in particular young males, are using it more often.

00:00:18.760 | The traditional media is now trying to create

00:00:20.640 | this kind of picture of nicotine being part of the

00:00:23.360 | kind of wellness and fitness community.

00:00:25.060 | But in my observation, many, many more people

00:00:27.960 | outside of that category are using it.

00:00:32.960 | So what, in your experience, happens when somebody with ADHD,

00:00:38.840 | let's assume they're not medicating in any other way,

00:00:42.660 | starts dabbling in nicotine use.

00:00:44.460 | And let's assume they're gonna do this

00:00:46.120 | in ways that do not cause cancer,

00:00:48.180 | because the smoking, dipping, vaping, snuffing part

00:00:50.760 | is what causes the cancer.

00:00:51.880 | Let's just talk about the compound nicotine.

00:00:54.180 | - Yeah, so there's some well-done research

00:00:56.920 | showing nicotine is helpful for improving

00:01:00.140 | some of the executive functions, sustained attention,

00:01:03.400 | and I'm not sure which of the executive functions,

00:01:07.800 | but they help people focus, be sharper, do better.

00:01:11.320 | There was actually a major pharmaceutical company

00:01:13.920 | who was developing a nicotine receptor product

00:01:17.160 | specifically for ADHD and they abandoned that several years ago.

00:01:22.680 | And I haven't been able to find word as to why that was abandoned,

00:01:26.420 | whether there was some other side effect.

00:01:28.040 | It's worth throwing out there that although nicotine, in many ways,

00:01:33.080 | acts like a stimulant, it actually is moderately unique.

00:01:37.120 | And I hate people whose unique means one of a kind, so I can't modify it in any way.

00:01:43.600 | Unusual, maybe not the only one, unusual in that it both arouses people

00:01:50.000 | and reduces anxiety simultaneously.

00:01:52.720 | Not too many, most of our stimulants are, again, banging away at the sympathetic nervous system,

00:01:58.560 | and that's banging away on good arousal and bad arousal.

00:02:02.880 | So nicotine, again, seems to be both calming and helping alert or focus people.

00:02:08.240 | And as long as they're taking it in a way that's not clearly detrimental to their health,

00:02:16.640 | which smoking and vaping and probably chewing are, well, not probably, definitely are.

00:02:22.240 | And if it's affordable, because some of these products are pretty pricey,

00:02:27.920 | at least the chewing gums or the Nicorette that was used for helping people with smoking cessation.

00:02:33.520 | I have some people who feel that it's been an important and useful part of their regimen.

00:02:38.560 | I have some people, small numbers, who prefer it to any other medications.

00:02:44.480 | And almost no, again, other than sort of the basic

00:02:48.640 | neurophysiology showing that it can have beneficial effects on executive functions,

00:02:53.920 | there's no research, at least as of a year or two ago, whenever I dipped my toe,

00:03:00.640 | not my anything else into the snuff, looked into it.

00:03:05.200 | There's no, you know, clinical research showing does this help or not help.

How Nicotine Affects Focus & ADHD | Dr. John Kruse & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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