Smoking and Smokeless Tobacco

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The effects of nicotine

• Nicotine acts as both a stimulant and depressant on your body. It increases your bowel activity, saliva, and bronchial secretions. It stimulates the nervous system and may cause tremors in the inexperienced user, or even convulsions with high doses.
• After stimulation, there's a phase that depresses the muscles in your airways. As a euphoric agent, nicotine causes relaxation from stressful situations.
• On average, tobacco increases your heart rate 10 to 20 beats per minute, and it increases your blood pressure reading by 5 to 10 mmHG (because it constricts the blood vessels).
• Nicotine may also cause sweating, nausea, and diarrhea. Nicotine elevates the blood level of glucose (blood sugar) and increases insulin production. Nicotine also tends to enhance platelet aggregation, which may lead to blood clots.
• Nicotine temporarily stimulates memory and alertness. People who use tobacco frequently depend on it to help them accomplish certain tasks at specific levels of performance. Nicotine also tends to be an appetite suppressant. (For this reason, fear of weight gain also influences the willingness of some people to stop smoking.)

Finally, tobacco is highly addictive. It is considered mood and behavior altering. Tobacco is believed to have an addictive potential comparable to alcohol, cocaine, and morphine.