The Newest Influencer Health Hack? Nicotine
An Anonymous Coward writes:
Multiple influencers who are supporters of Robert F Kennedy Jr's Make America Healthy Again movement are pushing a new and somewhat surprising health hack to their followers - nicotine.
The influencers claim that products such as patches, gums and pouches utilize the "natural" product and that it has been unfairly condemned by the medical establishment,
Nicotine pouches entered the U.S. market in 2016, and scientists are still learning about the short and long-term effects of the products, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"There are no safe tobacco products, including nicotine pouches. This is particularly true for youth, young adults, and women who are pregnant," the CDC website states.
"Youth, young adults, and women who are pregnant should not use nicotine pouches. People who do not currently use tobacco products, including nicotine pouches, should not start."
The center notes that nicotine can harm brain development, which continues up until the age of 25, as well as increasing the risk for young people of future addiction to other drugs. Symptoms of addiction can start "quickly" even if the person has not used nicotine products previously.
"Nicotine can also increase blood pressure and heart rate, which could, over time, raise the risk of heart disease; the compound may also harden the walls of arteries in the heart, which can lead to heart attacks. Nicotine can also exacerbate existing heart conditions, according to the CDC.
This has not deterred the MAHA influencers, who argue that nicotine has been vilified in a similar way to peptides, raw milk and beef tallow - which has been promoted by Kennedy. The U.S. Health Secretary himself has been pictured carrying around a tin of nicotine pouches, and has said previously that such pouches are "probably" the safest way to consume nicotine.
[...] Medical experts are united in their condemnation of such promotions.
"If there really was a health benefit for nicotine, then the medical community would be recommending it to their patients," Doctor Adam Leventhal, director of the Institute for Addiction Science at the University of Southern California, told The New York Times.
"And what's happening is the opposite."
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