Nicotine: Could it alleviate the mortality of viral hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola by reducing endothelial inflammation?

The majority of studies regarding nicotine have focused on the detrimental effects of nicotine in a plethora of physiopathological processes. However, recent studies have appreciated some beneficial effects of nicotine in various conditions. For instance, nicotine reduces the activity of aromatase involved in estrogen biosynthesis, which is a growth-inducing hormone for breast, ovarium and endometrial cancer. However, since smoking fume contains numerous carcinogens, it can not be concluded that smoking is beneficial in estrogen-dependent cancers. Nonetheless, transdermal nicotine or nicotine gums may exert some benefits and experimental studies demonstrated reduction of breast cancer growth with nicotine in animal models. Furthermore, nicotine exerts anxiolytic, anti-depressive and anti-obsessive effects in psychiatrical conditions. 

Therefore, some have commented that high rates of smoking in bipolar disorder patients (and very high rates in schizophrenics) may be a self-medication mechanism to reduce the disease burden. Since inflammation is more and more recognized as an important contributing factor to psychiatric diseases, nicotine's psychiatric effects may also be explained by its anti-inflammatory actions. Additionally, enhancing evidence indicates positive effects of nicotine in ameliorating Alzheimer's Disease. 

Nicotine also modifies the inflammatory stage of endothelial cells. While some studies showed negative effects of nicotine on endothelial function and integrity, there exist also a mounting evidence regarding nicotine alleviation of endothelial inflammation. Very interestingly, there also exist clinical data suggesting nicotine suppression of Kaposi Sarcoma, which is a malignancy origined from endothelial cells. It is known that chronic inflammation contributes to the growth of malignancies by stimulating angiogenesis and immunosuppression. Thus, this fact is parallel to the observations demonstrating nicotine reduction of endothelial inflammation. Moreover, pure nicotine increases PAI-1 (Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1) synthesis. Here, I propose that it would be worthwhile to test nicotine in treatment of viral hemorrhagic fevers.