Morning coffee can help you get rid of cigarette thoughtsDr. Bae Jin-gun

There are so many people who smoke and like coffee that there is a term for it, "kerdam" for short. Especially when I wake up in the morning, I often start my day with a cigarette or coffee. Interestingly, the reasons for this habit have been revealed. Recently, a team led by Professor Popke of the University of Florida School of Medicine published a paper on the subject in the international journal Neuropharmacology.

Coffee can help you quit smoking

Coffee contains caffeine, which has a stimulating effect, which makes people feel better. For smokers, the starting point of the study was to see if caffeine and some other ingredient combined to relieve withdrawal symptoms. Studies have shown that compounds in coffee reduce nicotine cravings. They hypothesized that a compound known as n-MP in coffee made from roasted coffee beans was likely to alleviate nicotine cravings.

The nicotine in cigarettes works by attaching to certain signaling receptors in the body. So the team extracted the compounds in the coffee and tested them individually to see if they reacted directly to the nicotine receptors. As a result, it was found that coffee, including caffeine and taurine, two of which are produced during the roasting process, directly attach to the receptors involved in nicotine addiction

Nicotine is not produced directly by the body, so it has to be sourced from the outside. However, if you don't have a nicotine supply for a long period of time, the level of nicotine in your blood will drop significantly, right? When all of the nicotine receptors are empty, we call it "hypersensitivity." Simply put, your body is in a state of craving more nicotine. When you drink coffee, the compounds in it bind to nicotine receptors and make you less sensitive, which helps alleviate withdrawal symptoms.

This research is still a cell-level experiment, but it can also be applied to humans. In fact, varenicline-based smoking cessation medications have a similar mechanism of action. Varenicline also has a high affinity for acetylcholine receptors and acts as a selective partial expression of acetylcholine nicotinic receptors. So it seems to have a similar effect on the continuous release of dopamine, which gradually leads to a reversal of smoking cravings and nicotine withdrawal.

So I looked at some interesting papers related to coffee and tobacco. For those who have decided to quit smoking for the sake of their health, morning coffee can help them stop thinking about cigarettes.