Stop smoking
Stop smoking is a choice that allows one to radically change one’s life by freeing oneself from an addiction that is very harmful to the body while regaining one’s health. Stop smoking is always worth it, at any age, for the whole range of established and known benefits it brings to the body both internally (cardiovascular system, pulmonary system, etc.) and externally at an aesthetic level (skin, hair, breath, etc.).
Stop smoking is not easy due in particular to the neourobiological dependence created by nicotine, one of the approximately 4,000 harmful substances contained in the aerosol generated by cigarette combustion, which is similar to that of other alkaloids such as cocaine or heroin.
How to do it?
Assuming that in order to stop smoking it is essential to be motivated and committed to the goal, there are many methods on the market for stop smoking, including pharmacological therapies with Bupropion and Varenicline as well as the various Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRT). Few, however, are aware of the use of cytisine in this context, a molecule about which, although it is currently the most effective pharmacological strategy to help patients stop smoking, particularly in Eastern Europe but also in Italy and Canada, little is known.
Cytisine is a natural alkaloid found in abundance in the seeds of Cytisus laburnum, a tobacco-like plant that is also called ‘fake tobacco‘ in the United States. Cytisine was studied in the past by researchers in the Soviet bloc and the first cytisine-based phytotherapy, approved in 1964 in Bulgaria, is still the best-selling product for the treatment of smoking in Eastern European countries.
Recent studies published in leading medical journals such as NEJM and JAMA have contributed to great interest in cytisine in the Western world as well, not only as a treatment for smoking cessation, but also as a potential therapy for other forms of addiction.
But how does it work?
Cytisine is a cholinergic, nicotine-sensitive receptor agonist. It is not nicotine but has nicotine-like activity because it acts on the same receptors as nicotine. This causes cytisine to greatly alleviate the typical effects of nicotine withdrawal, such as fatigue, irritability, exhaustion and loss of concentration, facilitating the gradual decrease and interruption of smokers’ physical and psychological dependence.
Last but not least, treatment with cytisine to stop smoking, despite being shown in several studies to be highly effective compared to other therapies, costs 5/10 times less than, for example, classic nicotine replacement therapy.
Truly an important ally in the quest to stop smoking, known and studied since the 1960s in the fight against smoking. In some Eastern European countries, it is sold as a ready-made industrial medicine and is known as Tabex, while in Italy, for example, it can be found in pharmacies as a galenic preparation.
For use, dosage, contraindications and further details, please refer to our dedicated page here.
Editorial Staff Tabex Shop