My partner wants to start using low doses of nicotine once a week to help her plow through paperwork (ie for the stimulant effects). Assuming the dosage is fairly low (2mg?) and frequency is 1-2x/weekly… are there any serious risks to consider going forwards? If so, are there safer alternatives to consider? For some reason she’s against upping caffeine intake. Thanks for reading!
Caffeine is much safer than nicotine in general. We have limited data on nicotine gum, lozenge, or patch use in folks who have never smoked, chewed tobacco, or vaped, so the risks of nicotine use tends to come from people who use nicotine after tobacco cessation. In any case, there does appear to be an increased risk of high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, and maybe a few types of cancer. The “benefits” of nicotine use are also not very strong with respect to cognitive function, motivation, etc. I don’t think this would be a good choice.
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Despite the shorter half-life, there’s pretty good evidence that nicotine in the evening can cause the same issues as caffeine with respect to sleep latency and quality.
Sounds like she may be all set from a stimulant standpoint for now.