A link between Autism and Nicotine Addiction?

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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/129832.php

I can really identify with these findings since I've been a three pack a day smoker for about 40 years and recently started taking 'Chantix' with a remarkable change in my overall personality and 'mood'. I have also indirectly trememdously cut back on cokes and coffee which is another big habit of mine.
Still haven't quit but am down to less than 1 packa day so still working on it.
Tried Welbutrin with no results or different feelings at all.

hmm...I've never finished a ciggie...I was fortunate to have someone laughing they're a** off every time I tried.

I reckon further studies are needed.

Like many people of my generation, I think smoking is disgusting and rather stupid. Unlike older people, I grew up with the knowledge that tobacco is dangerous; so I'm sure that influenced my perception. If when you grew up the risks weren't widely known and the social appeal was greater, I guess I could understand why you might try it and get hooked.

Of course, I also have the benefit of being mildly allergic and having a strong sensory aversion to cigarette smoke. If I'm honest, there's really no chance I'd even try it. I have enough trouble just sharing a room with a smoker who isn't actually smoking at the moment; trying it myself would probably give me either a meltdown or an asthma attack!

Sensory aversion should really drive the number of Aspie smokers down... but then self-medication could drive the numbers up again, especially since many of us are also AD/HD.

I was a militant anti-smoker until the age of 21. I hated the smell. Then one day, in a night club, I bought a pack of cigarettes and started smoking. They worked as some sort of weird social crutch too, allowing me to integrate with strangers with relative ease, especially other smokers. Nowadays I'll smoke a pack a day on average, but I tend to smoke a lot more when I'm around people, or if I go out.

This article is quite odd; I had been wondering about nicotinic receptors for some time as one of the anti-depressant drugs that I was prescribed some time ago reduced the effectiveness of certain nicotinic receptors, though my memory is way to fuzzy to remember the name of the drug, nor how it affected me.

I do know that once I started smoking, I started really growing in the outward for of things. Example, my thoughts and theories where finally able to fully ascend to surface for the thoughts and theories to begin reshaping my life.

I know cigarettes have helped me. I do though, hope one day to not need them anymore.

I smoke, and I love it. Actually, it's been a very big coping mechanism for when I'm angry and it gives me a reason to escape any situation I don't like. The more non-smokers out there that push anti-smoking, the better in a sense because I get more escape from them. But, since i have kids now, I really need to try to quit.

"Why don't you quit? Don't you know smoking is bad for your health?"

"If I were to quit, it would be bad for everyone else's health."

Tantybi! Thats awesome and true for me too.

It is amazing stuff. I still hope that one day I don't need it anymore.

I've got something to tell all you non-smokers out there because I know that you do not know this and I feel that it is my duty to share knowledge whenever possible so that we may all learn, grow, evolve and get the f**k off this planet. You ready? Drum roll please...

Non-smokers DIE...every day.

I know that you entertain some sort of eternal life fantasy because you do not smoke cigarettes, but just allow me to pop that little bubble and send you hurtling back to reality - Yyyyou're dead, too.

Sleep tight.

- Bill Hicks

I smoked pretty heavily for about 3 or 4 years. Glad I quit, I save a lot of money to spend on better things, considering I would spend at least $100 a week on cigarettes. As for that post above mine, that's a pretty ignorant view. Non-smokers die all the time, but they're not dying by self-induced means. You have to be pretty damn pessimistic to actually think that view has any merit at all whatsoever.

Frankly, I'm not sure how much of that receptor talk I buy into in any case. I used to smoke all day at work, until the engineers started complaining that the nicotine was gumming up the microciruitry and we were banished first to the hall, then outside entirely. I Stopped even bringing cigarettes to work, because I couldn't finish one before my next record ran out anyway. From that point on I've smoked only in the evening, right before bed. Don't even carry them out of the house with me. Never had a 'nicotine fit' or an uncomfortable craving, but I didn't stop altogether, either. Compulsive routines aside, conventional wisdom says smokers are such hopeless addicts that type of behavior modification should be virtually impossible, but it didn't even make me mildly nervous. It was just a practical decision.
As for being bad for you - My Paternal grandpa quit smoking at age 35 when I was still in preschool. I remember the Lucky Strike logo on the pack. He died at 88 of lung cancer. Go figure. What good did quitting do him? Buy him a few extra years of doing without something he enjoyed? What a life.

Well, the concept of nicotine without repercussions is fine by me. After I quit smoking I chewed Nicorette Gum for about a year, the high dose kind. Was disgusting as hell but I certainly got what I wanted. I think it made me even more addicted to nicotine before I stopped the gum as well.

Odd, back in the day when I would go to the all-nite greasy spoon with my cohorts, I would light up, relax, and then conversation would become more natural. It's a shame I still smoke, cause I don't congregate like I used to with my old allies. I even at one time tried the Welbutrin approach, which worked for like four months, but the drug caused me to get really aggressive so they put me on Xanax too, which made me a living dead person. I quit doing all pharmies, and still smoke. Yuck, I hate smoking, but I need it in some unknown circumstance.

It's about the odds--obviously everybody's going to die, some things just make some causes of death more likely, kind of the way a seat belt has a big chance of saving your life and a tiny chance of trapping you in a sinking car. We're all playing the odds. You could do everything right and drop dead in mid-jog from an undetected aneurysm in your twenties. There are just some things that are less likely than others.

When i was in neuro psychological testing and got the AS diagnosis 6 moths ago at the regional centre for autism here in norway , the head doc there actually mentioned i could get a time release nicotine pach as a medicine for as/add condition.
He told me it is linked to levels of acetyle choline in the brain and being able to focus.
I need to quit smoking to use it though , if i do quit the ciggs i will definetly try it , seems a better alternative than ritaline or ssri for me.

edit : but now im confused after reading the article as it semingly suggests that nicotine worsen autism

"Our research reveals how changes in the functions of neurexin could affect the guidance of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors to their functional destinations in nerve cells, perhaps increasing receptors in tobacco addicts while decreasing them in autistic individuals, thus increasing susceptibility to these devastating neurological disorders."

I dont think the doc at the autism centre here would agree to this , based on what he told me some months ago.

There is some evidence that nicotine improves attention and short-term memory in persons with schizophrenia and I can imagine it might have similar effects on those with AS and particularly ADD.

I smoked for years but finally had to give it up when I started having chronic sinus infections, and the volume of my habit was such that I would probably be tethered to an oxygen bottle by now had I not quit. Too bad, smoking is such a satisfying habit, like when you pour your cup of coffee in the morning and fire up that first cig of the day or are sitting on a barstool with a cold beer.

I think also aspies might take up smoking because they feel like outcasts or misfits, and either want to self-destruct or take a little pleasure in annoying other people, or perhaps both.

My advice is not to smoke, but if you used to smoke and quit, not be anti-smoking Nazi who lectures the addicted on the dangers of their habit.