A study, published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, found that smoking appears to reduce a key enzyme in the lungs, possibly contributing to some of smoking’s deleterious health effects.

The study, which used a radiotracer to track the enzyme, also shows that smokers had a lower concentration of the tracer in the bloodstream than nonsmokers did, leading to speculation that smokers and nonsmokers may respond differently to a variety of substances administered by inhalation or intravenously, including therapeutic, anesthetic and addictive drugs.

“ The effects of smoking on human health are enormous; yet, little is known about the pharmacologic effects of smoking on the human body apart from the effects of nicotine,” noted Joanna S. Fowler, program director of the Brookhaven Center for Translational Neuroimaging in Upton

Researchers from Brookhaven National Laboratory, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the State University of New York at Stony Brook used positron emission tomography ( PET ) scanning and a tracer chemical that binds to a specific form of the enzyme monoamine oxidase ( MAO A ) to track MAO A levels in both smokers and nonsmokers.

MAO A is a subtype of the enzyme crucial to mood regulation and one that breaks down chemical compounds that elevate blood.

. In the study, “ Comparison of Monoamine Oxidase A in Peripheral Organs in Nonsmokers and Smokers, ” researchers traced the MAO A subtype in nine smokers and nine nonsmokers, discovering that MAO A was fairly well “intact” in all of the peripheral organs except in smokers’ lungs, said Fowler.
Smokers had MAO A levels that were 50 percent lower than in nonsmokers, she said, noting that a prior study had also shown a significant reduction of MAO A in smokers’ brains.

MAO A breaks down many compounds that affect blood pressure, and the lung is a major metabolic organ in degrading some of these compounds, Fowler said.
So reduced levels of MAO A in smokers’ lungs may be a significant factor contributing to some of the physiological effects of smoking, including changes in blood pressure and pulmonary function.

Smokers’ lungs also held onto the tracer chemical much longer than nonsmokers, and the delivery of tracer into the arterial blood supply was much lower for smokers, particularly for the first few minutes after being injected, Fowler added.
This finding could imply that smokers and nonsmokers respond differently to other substances that enter the body via the bloodstream, including therapeutic drugs, anesthetics, abused substances and environmental agents—even nicotine.

Cigarette smoking accounts for 440,000 deaths each year in the United States, or nearly one of every five deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ).
Smoking kills more Americans than AIDS, illegal drugs, alcohol, car accidents, suicides and murders combined and increases one’s chances of developing lung, bladder, esophageal and throat cancers; chronic lung diseases; and coronary heart and cardiovascular diseases.

Source: Society of Nuclear Medicine, 2005


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