Beneficial effects of smoking

Tobacco has sometimes been reported to have some positive health effects, presumably due to the effects of nicotine on the nervous system. Most notably, some studies have found that patients with Alzheimer's Disease are more likely not to have smoked than the general population, which has been interpreted to suggest that smoking offers some protection against Alzheimer's. However, the research in this area is limited and the results are mixed. Some studies show that smoking increases the risk of Alzheimer's Disease. A recent review of the available scientific literature concluded that the apparent decrease in Alzheimer risk may be simply due to the fact that smokers tend to die before reaching the age at which Alzheimer normally occurs. "Differential mortality is always likely to be a problem where there is a need to investigate the effects of smoking in a disorder with very low incidence rates before age 75 years, which is the case of Alzheimer's disease", it stated, noting that smokers are only half as likely as non-smokers to survive to the age of 80.

Some studies have found that smoking is associated with:

* A protective effect of current smoking in Parkinson's disease,although the authors stated that it was more likely that the movement disorders which are part of Parkinson's disease prevented people from being able to smoke than that smoking itself was protective.
* A protective effect in ulcerative colitis, although it increases the risk of Crohn's disease, the other form of inflammatory bowel disease.
* A reduced risk of Kaposi's sarcoma.
* There is some evidence for decreased rates of endometriosis in infertile women, although other studies have found that smoking increases the risk in infertile women. There is little or no evidence of a protective effect in fertile women.
* Some preliminary data from 1996 suggested a reduced incidence of fibroids, but overall the evidence is unconvincing.
* There is limited evidence that it reduces the incidence of hypertension during pregnancy, but not when the pregnancy is with more than one baby (i.e. it has no effect on twins etc.). Smoking does, however, increase the likelihood of almost every other pregnancy-related health risk to both mother and child, and is the single most preventable cause of illness and death among mothers and infants.[54]
* A very large percentage of schizophrenics smoke tobacco as a form of self medication.


Artile Source : http://en.wikipedia.org