Researchers may have figured out how a drug called methoxsalen may help smokers quit smoking. Methoxsalen blocks nicotine breakdown, write Jason Yano, PhD, and colleagues in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. With nicotine intact, smokers may not crave cigarettes as much.Methoxsalen also appears to block cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco from breaking down into even more harmful components, write the researchers.The findings could lead to new quit-smoking medicines, writes Yano. He works in the molecular and experimental medicine department of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
