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Past research shows that more than 85 percent of US adults who are dependent on alcohol are also dependent on nicotine, but why do the two go hand in hand?
Now, a new study with rats finds that nicotine cancels out the sleep-inducing effects of alcohol.
"We know that many people who drink alcohol also use nicotine, but we don't know why exactly that is," says Mahesh Thakkar, associate professor and director of research in the University of Missouri School of Medicine's neurology department and lead author of the study.
"We have found that nicotine weakens the sleep-inducing effects of alcohol by stimulating a response in an area of the brain known as the basal forebrain. By identifying the reactions that take place when people smoke and drink, we may be able to use this knowledge to help curb alcohol and nicotine addiction."
http://www.futurity.org/smoking-drinking-1036052-2/
[Abstract]: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jnc.13219/abstract
[Source]: http://medicine.missouri.edu/news/0305.php
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday November 02 2015, @02:35AM
"Andrei Simiæ, the Gaean philosopher, has theorized that primitive man, evolving across millions of years in chronic fear, pain, deprivation and emergency, must have adapted intimately to these excitations. In consequence, civilized men will of necessity require occasional frights and horrors, to stimulate their glands and maintain their health. Simiæ has jocularly proposed a corps of dedicated public servants, the Ferocifers, or Public Terrifiers, who severely frighten each citizen several times a week, as his health requires."
-- Jack Vance, WYST (1978)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.