patrick.net

https://knowingneurons.com/2016/04/13/nicotine-parkinsons-disease/

According to the World Health Organization, smoking is responsible for approximately 6 million deaths in the world every year or one fatality every six seconds. 71% of all lung cancers and 42% of all chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases are attributable to tobacco use. Oddly enough, not everything related to smoking is bad news: smokers seem to be protected against Parkinson’s diseaseNeurodegenerative disease where dopaminergic neurons of the .... Studies have shown that people who smoke on a regular basis are about two-fold less likely to suffer from Parkinson’s disease.

My dad had incipient Parkinson's disease, but died before it got bad.

I heard about this relation between smoking and Parkinson's, but then heard about another beneficial effect: smokers are less affected by caffeine. I love espresso, but fear having more than two shots because then I won't sleep well that night, even if I had the espresso at 8am.

Nicotine is a stimulant which not only may protect again Parkinson's and reduce the effects of caffeine, but has its own positive effects on thinking:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3878772/

Further, a large number of human and animal studies have found nicotine-induced improvements in several aspects of cognitive function, including learning and memory [90], reaction time [91] and fine motor abilities

So lately I've been having a 2mg piece of nicotine gum after lunch, and find it does seem to wake me up a bit so that I can work more effectively in the afternoon. Nicotine itself does not seem to be a carcinogen, so it's win-win-win so far. I may get some protection from Parkinson's, better sleep due to more efficient caffeine metabolism, and I'm a bit more awake at work without having coffee after lunch.

One other note: grapefruit juice has large effects on the metabolism of many drugs, and I used to drink a lot of grapefruit juice just because I like it. But then I read that it increases the effects of caffeine. So I've stopped with the grapefruit juice.