Nicotine’s Effects on the Brain & Body & How to Quit Smoking or Vaping

- Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we are discussing nicotine. Nicotine is one of the most commonly consumed substances on the entire planet. There are literally billions of people

that ingest nicotine on a daily basis. Most of those people consume nicotine via smoking, and in particular smoking tobacco. Tobacco contains nicotine and it contains a bunch of other things as well, which we will talk about. And the burning of tobacco liberates nicotine and makes it accessible to the various cells and tissues of the body.

But of course, there are other sources of nicotine as well. Some people consume nicotine through dip, that is placing tobacco on the inside of the lip or in the cheek. Some people consume nicotine via snuff, which is literally the shoving of tobacco leaves up the nostrils and allowing the tobacco to access the nervous system and other areas

of the body by permeating into the mucosal membranes, that is the lining, the soft lining of the nasal passages. And of course there are nicotine patches, nicotine gum, there's nicotine in pill form, there are toothpicks dipped in nicotine, et cetera. Today we are going to separate our discussion of nicotine from a discussion of smoking and vaping

and the other forms of delivery for nicotine. We will be talking about smoking and vaping and other routes of nicotine administration, both for sake of highlighting their detriments to health and, believe it or not, in certain cases, keep in mind very specific certain cases, the possible health benefits of delivering nicotine through specific modalities.