Source for the claim that nicotine use "ruins" gut health?
My understanding is that the relationship between nicotine and gut health (indeed, overall health) is much more complex and nuanced than that. I know that nicotine has a positive effect on ulcerative colitis symptoms for many sufferers.
Of all the diseases summarized here concerning systemic inflammation, especially in sepsis and endotoxemia, nicotine exerted the most pharmaceutical effect and significantly improved the survival. Next, nicotine is also a potential candidate for treating ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, multiple sclerosis, and myocarditis; the in vivo data provided a much better foundation. For local inflammation, the nicotine administration route may be more important to avoid its accumulation in other healthy organs—for example, the effect of nicotine on arthritis will be more pronounced when nicotine is directly injected into the focus of infection. Perhaps that is why, in the early years, tobacco was used to treat enteritis as enemas (4). It is evident that nicotine has a significant pro-inflammatory effect on periodontitis. However, the latest research also found that nicotine positively affects periodontitis at a lower dosage. In this regard, we consider that the effect of nicotine on periodontitis is mainly due to the influence of inevitable and original oral microbes. At present, most studies focus on the cellular level, and in vivo studies may be limited due to the difficulty of model construction. Therefore, we recommend that individuals with poor oral hygiene avoid excessive direct exposure to nicotine for oral diseases.
>> Source for the claim that nicotine use "ruins" gut health?
Not gut health specifically, but we run the tests on taking nicotine orally for nicotine sprays. It's definitely makes ulcers more likely to happen in short term usage.
What's even worse, it definitely fucks up your neuromodulators, which is very bad for children and young adults. That's a well known fact, it's why it's addictive, and that's why quitting it will make you have very bad mood swings.
The body adjusts to the dopamine spikes by lowering dopamine, and if it happens during brain development, it's just not good. Any addiction during brain development is not good, but especially a chemical one. Kids need to learn what their emotions are and how to control them before they can control them by chewing. Kids usually do it through teens and up to early adulthood.
> What's even worse, it definitely fucks up your neuromodulators
fwiw despite decades of research into nicotine, we have very little data on how bad it actually is at low dosages and via delivery methods other than tobbacco. The vast majority of research on nicotine by itself is in the context of smoking cessation. A lot of the risks people warn about wrt nicotine (dopamine spikes, vasoconstriction, dependence, etc.) is also present in any stimulant, including ADHD medication and even coffee. Also, again, very limited research on this, but some of it suggests nicotine could be helpful for ADHD.
That said, none of this really detract from your point about risks in children, and the trendy delivery methods like vapes and pouches seem to be extremely addictive.
>> we have very little data on how bad it actually is at low dosages and via delivery methods other than tobbacco
Not true, we have a lot of data about using nicotine as pesticide. And quite a lot about oral toxicity. Pharma had nicotine sprays and tablets tasted for decades. Wouldn't be allowed on european market otherwise.
>> A lot of the risks people warn about wrt nicotine (dopamine spikes)
you misunderstand. The dopamine from coffee is purely from a personal enjoyment, while nicotine binds directly into nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain. It doesn't matter how it enters the blood, it will alter neurotransmitter activity.
That's why сytisine is so good for battling a nicotine addiction — it binds the same receptors and prevents the nicotine binding. It's like swapping one addiction for another, except nicotine stays in your system for a week while сytisine leaves quickly (5h).
So, you see, it's not "the same" as coffee, it's more like taking longlasting antianixiety or ADHD meds recreationally.
When you need meds like that, altering your brain chemistry is a desirable outcome, of course. I'm not against drugs overall.
But drugs like that are prescription only for a reason.
>> some of it suggests nicotine could be helpful for ADHD
some of what I've read also suggests that nicotine could be helpful for schizophrenia. But given that we know what mechanism it targets, I fully believe we can find an alternative formula that wouldn't be so toxic to humans.
Or, an iPad.
I’ve only traveled with my work computer and my personal iPad the past 5 years. Roughly on business trips once every ~2-3 months for a week and I’ve found I can do all I need on the iPad Pro.
> It isn't reasonable to expect a non lawyer to understand it
A closing argument - the specific example the parent comment used - is made to the jury. It is intended to persuade the jury. If the jury can't understand it, something has gone very wrong.
diagnostic does not mean "not covered", it just means it moves out of the "zero cost even if you haven't met your deductible yet" categroy defined by the ACA, and into the regular category where you pay your deductible, copays and coinsurance
> I believe that in the US, there is a certain age, after which, they're covered.
There is a lot of confusion over this point, even among support agents for health insurance companies.
i) The Affordable Care Act specifies that all Marketplace health plans must cover colorectal cancer screening for adults 45 to 75 years at zero cost [i]. That means no copay and no coinsurance, even if you haven't met your deductible. You pay $0.
ii) That generally means that colonoscopies will be zero-cost for anyone in that age bracket, but only if it is a "screening". If you have symptoms, the service may be billed as diagnostic rather than preventative, which takes it out of the "zero cost" category
iii) All of the above is separate from whether the procedure is "covered" or not, because "covered" in the context of health insurance means "your plan covers this, subject to your normal deductible, copay and coinsurance, so long as it is medically necessary". If something is truly "not covered" then your insurance pays $0 and the provider will bill you the full, undiscounted cost of the procedure.
In other words, there is a difference between "your plan covers this (as it does for any other regular medical care)" and "your plan covers this at zero cost, as it falls into one of the narrowly defined 'preventative care' buckets as defined by the ACA"
It's common for people to confuse these things.
In your case, it sounds like the procedure was not covered at zero cost (as expected, as you are not in the 45-75 age bracket defined by the ACA, and in any case your procedure was diagnostic, not preventative), but it was "covered" by your health insurance in that you paid your regular deductible and copay, rather than the insurance company saying "your plan does not cover this procedure (at all)" and then the hospital billing you the full cost of the procedure, which would be tens of thousands of dollars.
> i) The Affordable Care Act specifies that all Marketplace health plans must cover colorectal cancer screening for adults 45 to 75 years at zero cost [i]. That means no copay and no coinsurance, even if you haven't met your deductible. You pay $0.
At least with my ACA insurance plan, you have to appeal it first because they pretend like it's actually diagnostic even though it was billed as screening.
It's fraud prevention! You see, people love to shit in a bucket multiple times a year to have their shit tested all to defraud insurance companies.
> does anyone else have their entire day sidelined by a 10-minute call? is that common?
It's extremely common for me.
It really comes down to the point made in the article. If you have five or six calls already, the marginal cost of one more call is very low. If you have no calls, the marginal cost of one more call is very high.
>It's much more difficult to detect or correct misunderstandings over text.
I really couldn't disagree more strongly. I think it's much easier to correct misunderstandings over text. In a spoken discussion, there is a high degree of temporal entropy - the longer it's been since you made a point, the worse my recollection of your exact point may be. Detail and nuance is lost. But if you write your point down, I can refer to it at any point without any real loss of information.
In my experience, it's relatively common for two people to leave a spoken discussion thinking they have a strong, shared understanding, and only much later do they realize that's not the case.
yeah i agree. i’ve had so many instances where i’ve got off a call and then a week later the person
* has a fundamentally different understanding of the facts discussed [0]
* has forgotten the important facts even when they were highlighted as important
* has completely forgotten most of the conversation, sometimes even forgetting we had a conversation
* has just made some shit up in their head that was never even talked about
… and once again i’d have to go over the whole thing again for an hour, so we’re back where we started a week later. this is normal “fuzzy human brain stuff”. people forget details over the course of a week, especially new details.
but yeah; if it’s not written down it doesn’t exist is my mantra now.
[0]: note to say this was not because they went and spoke to someone else and got more detail, other opinions etc. the detail would just get warped in their brain over the course of a week.
> You can just spin up a raw VPS on EC2 or Lightsail, give it a public IP, and call it a day
You could do this, but for the life of me I can't imagine why you do this over using a platform like DO, vultr, hetzner or any one of a hundred similar services that will give you a better developer experience for this kind of workflow, often at a fraction of the price
My understanding is that the relationship between nicotine and gut health (indeed, overall health) is much more complex and nuanced than that. I know that nicotine has a positive effect on ulcerative colitis symptoms for many sufferers.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8895249/#s4
A quote:
Of all the diseases summarized here concerning systemic inflammation, especially in sepsis and endotoxemia, nicotine exerted the most pharmaceutical effect and significantly improved the survival. Next, nicotine is also a potential candidate for treating ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, multiple sclerosis, and myocarditis; the in vivo data provided a much better foundation. For local inflammation, the nicotine administration route may be more important to avoid its accumulation in other healthy organs—for example, the effect of nicotine on arthritis will be more pronounced when nicotine is directly injected into the focus of infection. Perhaps that is why, in the early years, tobacco was used to treat enteritis as enemas (4). It is evident that nicotine has a significant pro-inflammatory effect on periodontitis. However, the latest research also found that nicotine positively affects periodontitis at a lower dosage. In this regard, we consider that the effect of nicotine on periodontitis is mainly due to the influence of inevitable and original oral microbes. At present, most studies focus on the cellular level, and in vivo studies may be limited due to the difficulty of model construction. Therefore, we recommend that individuals with poor oral hygiene avoid excessive direct exposure to nicotine for oral diseases.
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