apparently protective effect of smoking in UC?
Two relevant articles were recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine looking at the potential therapeutic benefit of nicotine patches, normally used to help people stop smoking, to induce remission of active UC and to maintain remission. The patches were helpful in some patients in the induction of remission but were not helpful in the maintenance of remission. Most non smoking patients in the studies suffered some side effects from the nicotine, including nausea, vomiting, lightheadedness, headache and sleeplessness. More work needs to be done to clarify the role of nicotine in therapy of UC.
