May 14, 1960 CARDIOVASCULAR EFFECTS of NICOTINE and OF
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N0. 4724 May 14, 1960 NATURE 525 but the particles continually shifted about, as could are collected by interstitial macrophages and fibrosi;; be explained by the repeated death of dust-laden is marked in regions where this occurs. The time phagocytes with release of their bm·den, which was sequence of clinical events and of lung content of then incorporated by new cells. fibres exceeding 26fL in length supports the argument. After a single administration of dust, phagocyte Papers on dust-sampling included the description of cmmts in saline washed into and out of rat lungs an ingenious centrifugal device called the 'conicyclo', demonstrated that the number of cells was related which collects only particles between upper and lower to the quantity of dust eliminated. The half-life of limits of falling speed. It has been engineered as a this phase of elimination by phagocytosis to the practical sampling tool for coal mines and is being bronchial epithelium was about 17 hr. The propor tried out underground. tion of dust eliminated in this way depended on The relationship between the acceptance curve of a the nature of the dust, but the time-constant did not ; sampling instrument designed to control dust condi it did not appear to matter whether the dust was given tions relevant to the incidence of pneumoconiosis, by inhalation or by intratracheal injection. and the actual deposition-particle-size curve of the Another series of experiments confirmed the human respiratory tract was given more emphasis destructive action of silica dusts on macrophages and by the engineers than om· crude and incomplete once again led to the suggestion that the damage knowledge of the latter can possibly justify. inflicted on the cells is the first step in tho chain of Argmnents in favom· of selecting finer particles causation of silicosis. The effect is believed not to than the 50 per cent at 5fL diameter and unit density, be cytotoxic, but to comprise an activation either of a which at present forms the basis of British selective serum complement absorbed on the outside of the cells sampling practice, are therefore poorly based. The or of an enzyme, possibly a non-specific esterase, opposite view was also put forward, that all dust within the cells. should be sa.mpled, irrespective of particle size ; Examination of lung residues from 50 asbestosis b esides being physically impossible this would encow- cases was reported, with t-he conclusion that a fibre age the collection of large quantities of coarse dust genic agent was liberated when asbestos bodies break which has no conceivable bearing on pneumoconiosis up. The deposition of an asbestos fibre in lung tissue because, when inhaled, it would not penetrate beyond is followed by its becoming enclosed in a protein the bronchi, and larger bronchioles. sheath which passes through a sequence of changes The papers and discussions will be published by and finally segments, after 10-15 years, with fracture Pergamon Press in due com·se. of tho contained fibre. The fragments of the sheath C. ~- DAVIES CARDIOVASCULAR EFFECTS OF NICOTINE AND OF SMOKING URING March 28-25 a symposium on the as 10-90 mgm. a day (Larsen, Richmond, Virginia.). D Cardiovascular Effects of Nicotine and of It is obvious that the taking of snuff and the chewing Smoking was held by the New York Academy of of tobacco offer rnuch loss ri<;k of producing canc·er Sciences. The papers presented covered more than tho of tho lung. cardiovascular effects and included other interesting The metabolism of nicotine i~ not yet fully known, observations. For example, nicotine is found not and further work is badly needed. Nicotine is found only in the tobacco plant, but it also occurs widely in the urine excreted unchanged, together with in the plant kingdom. It is produced in the root r elated substances (McKennis, Richmond, Virginia). system of the tobacco plant, and the growth of the Oxidation of the p:ynolidine ring appears to be a roots is very closely related to the rate of nicotine major step. The laetan1 (- )-cotinine which arist•s production, from which R . F. Dawson (Columbia) from the metabolism of (-)-nicotine is oxidized, and and his colleagues conclude that tho same reaction in the dog there is hydroxylation and methylation. step limits both processes. Nicotine arises from the It seems possible that the metabolism of nicotine precursors nicotinic acid and ornithine. From the changes with advancing years, some processes root it is transported primarily to the leaves, where deelining in rate or ceasing altogether. If the it accumulates during the active life of tho plant. It t.oleration of nicotine depends on a. high rate of is believed to be a terminal product with no appreci breakdown, the observation that some older peop!P. able physiological activity for the plant. Such a stop smoking who smoked mueh when young may conclusion seems to an animal physiologist to be depend on such a decline. highly unlikely. Nicotine has been known to cause poisoning in Nicotine is absorbed not only by those who smoke those using it. as an insectieide. Travell (Cornell) has hut also by those who take snuff and those who chew shown t-hat its absorption through tho skin is great!~' tobacco. The figures given for the amount of nicotine affected by the pH of the solution. At a pH of 5 ·0 absorbed when smoking one cigarette vary according or less it is very little abgorbed, but at an alkaline to the degree to which smoke is inhaled. They range pH it is readily absorbed. This holds true for the from estimates as low as 0·3 mgm. to others as high m embrane of the stomach and of the bladder. as 1·8 mgm. Since the intravenous injection cf Nicotine excreted in the urine may bo absorbed frorn 0·7 mgm. nicotine (base) produces unpleasant symp the bladder into the blood if the urine is alkaline, toms, the higher figures must be regarded with doubt. and may produce toxic effects. The spe\:ld of absorp Nicotine taken in the form of snuff has been tion depends on the concentration of free base. On !'stimated to amount to 20-60 mgm. a day, and that the cardiovascular system, nicotine has long been absorbed as a result of chewing has been estimated believed to owe its action to s1 imulation of the © 1960 Nature Publishing Group 526 NATURE Mav 14, 1960 VOL 186 J autonomic ganglia. Langley applied nicotine to Ringer's solution, nicotine no longer causes vasocon ganglia in order to determine the effect of stimulating striction. When the skin of such an ear is extracted, no the cell<> present in the ganglia. Recently, attention noradrenaline is found present in it. Some individuals has been directed to various peripheral effects of suffer from a disease called thrombo-angiitis obliterans nicotine at sites where ganglia are not present. Thus, which when active causes such a restriction of tho nicotine has a two-fold effect in the isolated heart. circulation through the fingers that the tissues become It causes first inhibition of contractions, and second dry and bloodless, and the finger tips may become acceleration and augmentation. The inhibition is gangrenous. The disease may be quiescent for long excluded in the presence of atropine, but the accelera periods ; but if the patient begins to smoke, the tion is unaffected. In the heart there is a store of symptoms get worse and the disease becomes active. noradrenaline which can be extracted from the heart. It seems likely that tho effect of smoking is explained Hitherto the existence of this store has been neglected by nicotine releasing noradrenaline from the neigh by physiologists. It is now evident that the accelera bourhood of the small vessels. tion of the heart caused by nicotine is due to the The exact site of storage of noradrenaline in tho release of some of the noradrenaline from the store. heart and in or near the vessels is unknown. There This follows from the observation that when there is is a possibility that it is held in tissue known aR no store of noradrenaline, nicotine loses its acceler chromaffin tissue. These are cells which stain brown ating action (Burn and Rand, Oxford). Treatment with potassimn dichromate ; they form the greater of the animal with reserpine causes a disappearance part of the cells of the adrenal medulla. Such cells of the store at the end of a few hours. The rise in have long been known to occur among the fibres of heart-rate which follows smoking is thus probably the sympathetic system, and side by side with the explained by an action of nicotine on the heart sympathetic ganglion cells. They originate in the itself releasing noradrenaline from storage sites in neural crest like the sympathomimetic ganglion cells the heart. and were called by Kohn "paraganglia" in 190:~. In 1940 it was shown by Grace Roth and her Evidence is beginning to accumulate that the dis colleagues that when a person smoked a cigarette in tribution of chromaffin cells is much wider. Busacchi a warm room there was a large fall in skin tempera in 1912 described a "paraganglion cardiacum" lying ture. This fall was believed to result from a con arotmd the origins of the coronary arteries. AdamB Btriction of tho skin vessels caused by a stream of Ray and Nordenstam (1956) have described such impulses passing down the vasoconstrictor nerves. cells in human skin, and Leach believes that they However, observations have recently been made in may be present in the skin of the rabbit ear, in the the isolated ear of the rabbit, which contains no skin of the eat's tail and in the nictitating membram1 ganglia.