From the Office of Dr. Pettey:

Quitting Smoking can be a gas.

Research shows that a dose of laughing gas - the same nitrous oxide used to anesthetize patients may help smokers kick the habit. Dr. Jesse H. Haven at the Anchor Health Center in Naples, Fla., reported findings at the Scientific Assembly of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Haven's team hypothesized that nitrous oxide may help smokers quit because it has been shown to replenish stores of dopamine, a brain-signaling chemical that becomes depleted during drug and alcohol withdrawl. On the day smokers planned to quit, Haven's and his colleagues administered a mix of half nitrous oxide and half oxygen and had them inhale for 20 minutes through a mask. Overall, they found an 85-percent reduction in the number of cigarettes smoked per day in the first three days after patients took the gas.