An Updated Review of Nicotine in Gastrointestinal Diseases

Nicotine addiction is a major risk for the population all over the world. Many gastrointestinal diseases are caused due to nicotine addiction, like peptic ulcers, inflammatory bowel diseases, and gastrointestinal cancer. Nicotine causes variations in the offensive and defensive factors, which are involved in gastrointestinal mechanisms.

We aim to provide insights into nicotine activity in gastrointestinal disorders and cancer.

Extensive literature was done using the keywords “Nicotine,” “Nicotine addiction,” “GI disorders,” “Peptic ulcer,” “Inflammatory bowel diseases,” and “Gastrointestinal cancer” from standard databases like PubMed, Scopus, Elsevier, and Science Direct.

Thus, we may conclude that addiction to nicotine in peptic ulcers causes an increase of offensive factors and a decrease of defensive factors, and in gastrointestinal cancers, causes an increase in angiogenesis, metastasis, and proliferation and decrease in apoptosis in ulcerative colitis. It is used as treatment but worsens the condition of Crohn’s disease.