Nicotine: Deadly poison or Ergogenic Aid? by Jerry Brainum 7/24

 

 

Although various drugs popular with athletes and bodybuilders are frequently written about and discussed, one substance that has been popular with athletes is rarely, if ever, talked about. That substance is nicotine. Nicotine is familiar to most people and is the active ingredient in various tobacco products, such as cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and most recently, E-cigarettes or vaping. Nicotine is not only one of the most addictive substances known but is also a deadly poison. The fatal dose of nicotine is only 60 milligrams, or the amount contained in 5 cigarettes. Indeed, as a poison, nicotine is considerably stronger than cyanide. If it takes only five cigarettes to provide enough nicotine to kill a person, then why don't chain smokers, who light up one cigarette after another, die? For one, the oral bioavailability of nicotine is 20%. And a person who smokes isn't getting the total dose of 60 milligrams, but rather smaller doses that lead to nothing more than coughing. Despite the poisonous nature of nicotine, it isn't the most dangerous substance found in heated tobacco. What causes most of the health problems related to consistent smoking are the 4,000 chemicals found in cigarette smoke, with 70 of them being established carcinogens. Thus, it's no small wonder that the most significant risk factor for the development of lung cancer is smoking cigarettes. Not all smokers succumb to lung cancer, but many do. If they don't die from cancer, the cause of death is usually cardiovascular disease since smoking promotes atherosclerosis and subsequent cardiovascular disease.

With these facts about the effects of smoking and nicotine evident, why would athletes do things like not only smoke cigarettes but also engage in other habits, such as chewing tobacco that supplies substantial amounts of nicotine? Tobacco has had a long association with sports. For years, tobacco companies were the most prominent advertisers for sports. I recall going to baseball games as a child and noticing billboards placed around the field that advertised various brands of cigarettes and other tobacco products, including chewing tobacco. Even the players in the game didn't hide their use of tobacco. Pitchers would vigorously chew something throughout the game that I at first thought was chewing gum. However, they regularly spit out a brown substance that I quickly realized wasn't chewing gum but chewing tobacco. Tobacco companies placed billboards on baseball fields as far back as the 19th century, and cigarettes were sold with baseball trading cards that advertised the particular brand of cigarettes. At baseball stadiums in the Deep South, billboards around the field advertised a brand of chewing tobacco called Bull Durham, which was later the title of a movie about baseball. In the 20s and 40s, every professional baseball team had a tobacco company sponsor, and some of the . . .