Addiction - Chantix /Champix (Varenicline)

[Forthesevenlakes]

swim posted something about nicotine-blocking drugs recently, and found this article tied in nicely with what he was mentioning. the use of the word "vaccine" in the article is interesting, in that it implies nicotine addiction is a disease meant to be cured. as a smoker, what proportion of smokers feel they are victims of a disease, and who thinks they brought their addiction upon themselves? for that matter, is any drug use just a disease needing a "cure" to most scientists, or can it have redeeming factors that mean that users do not desire a pharmacological "cure"? this drug could have many ethical/philosophical implications, and its not only interesting but important to keep posted on how these drugs work out when they are released to the public...


Posted 7/31/2006 7:49 PM ET <span class="pageTools">| swapContent('firstHeader','applyHeader'); By Mary Specht, USA TODAY
Smokers who have tried everything to kick the habit have one more option: Chantix, a stop-smoking drug that works differently from others. It arrived on the market Monday.
The medicine's mechanism — it partially activates nicotine receptors in the brain — is unique among smoking-cessation drugs. It levels out the peaks and dips from the roller coaster of nicotine addiction, making cigarettes less satisfying and mitigating the discomfort of missing a smoke.
After a year, about 22% of patients who took Chantix in clinical trials were still not smoking. Fewer than 5% of smokers who try to quit on their own can last a year without a cigarette, says Thomas Glynn, director of cancer science at the American Cancer Society.
But an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association last month cautioned that Chantix may go the way of other stop-smoking drugs, which fared better in trials than in the real world.
For example, when nicotine gums, patches, lozenges, inhalers and sprays first arrived more than two decades ago, trials often showed comparably high quit rates to Chantix, says Robert C. Klesges, lead author of the editorial and a professor at the University of Tennessee's Health Science Center.
But data now show only about one in 10 smokers who use the nicotine-replacement products can remain smoke-free for a year. The difference is that people in drug trials — like the one that tested Chantix — are usually healthier and more diligent about sticking to their drug regimen than the general population, Klesges says.
"Each time one of these new (stop-smoking medicines) comes out, I think there is a rush to try it," Glynn says. "But it's going to be different for different people."
A third of patients experienced nausea, serious enough in about 3% of patients that they left the trial. Other side effects include constipation, gas and abnormal dreams.
But such side effects didn't bother trial patient Brenda Moore, 39, of Beatyville, Ky., who had smoked for 30 years. Chantix eased her cravings and made her wonder what was ever so appealing about smoking: "The nicotine wasn't giving me that rush that it did, and that made it a lot easier. And once the rush was gone, all you had was that taste (of the cigarette) in your mouth, and it was gross."
Patients take a pill once a day for the first three days, then twice a day for the rest of the 12-week treatment.
Nearly 70% of America's 45 million smokers want to quit, according to American Lung Association data. Other stop-smoking drugs in the pipeline could provide them even more options.
Acomplia, a drug available in Europe for weight loss, also has shown potential for helping smokers quit, but the Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved it for either use in the USA.
Some nicotine vaccines are in the works, including NicVax, which could make patients unable to feel a nicotine high. They're at least two years from the market, Glynn says.