Dave Asprey tells his million-plus social media followers that nicotine can "reverse Alzheimer's" and "potentially even help you live longer." Tucker Carlson called ZYN "lifesaving" and said the pouches are "like the hand of God reaching down and massaging your central nervous system." Jillian Michaels, the celebrity fitness trainer, says she uses low-dose nicotine to protect against Parkinson's disease.

The product at the centre of these claims? Nicotine pouches — the small, tobacco-free cellulose pouches you tuck under your lip. US pouch sales nearly tripled between January 2023 and December 2024, and a new wave of wellness influencers aligned with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement are accelerating the trend by reframing pouches as a "natural" cognitive enhancer rather than a recreational nicotine product.

Doctors and researchers say the claims are outpacing the evidence by a wide margin — and warn that the wellness framing could pull in people who would never otherwise have used nicotine.

Who is pushing the wellness framing

A loose coalition of biohacking influencers, fitness personalities, and conservative media figures have turned nicotine pouches into a wellness talking point.

Dave Asprey, the biohacker who coined the term "Bulletproof Coffee," has told his followers that nicotine is one of "Mother Nature's cognitive enhancers." He has invested in the nicotine pouch company Lucy and said he did brief consulting work for Philip Morris.

Tucker Carlson sells his own brand of nicotine pouches and has promoted ZYN as a product that can boost "male vitality" and productivity.

Jillian Michaels said on her podcast that she uses low doses of nicotine to protect against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and to manage what she describes as ADHD-related focus issues. "Nicotine, unto itself, is not toxic. It's beneficial," she said — while adding that not everyone should use it and that people should consult their doctors.

Andrew Huberman, the Stanford neuroscientist-turned-podcaster, has for years claimed that nicotine can make users more alert, helping popularise the idea that the compound is a legitimate cognitive tool rather than just an addictive substance.

New pouch brands are building their entire positioning around this wellness rebrand. Athletic Nicotine bills itself as a brand for "high-intensity, health-conscious individuals working to optimize performance on the field, at the gym, or in the office" and features endorsements from a Michelin-star chef, a New York Times best-selling author, and a big-wave surfer. 1N, founded by biohacker Terry Seal in Berlin, launched in the UK in 2026 with lozenges designed around "biohacking design principles" — transparent ingredients, low-strength formats, and no artificial sweeteners.

Even Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been photographed carrying a tin of ZYN and said that pouches are "probably" the safest way to consume nicotine.

What the influencers claim

The claims fall into three broad buckets:

1. Cognitive enhancement. Nicotine makes you sharper, more focused, and more productive. The framing draws on the fact that nicotine is a stimulant that acts on acetylcholine receptors in the brain.

2. Neuroprotection. Some influencers cite research suggesting nicotine may have protective effects against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

3. "Natural" wellness. The MAHA-aligned framing positions nicotine alongside other "natural" products that the medical establishment has supposedly demonised — beef tallow, raw milk, peptides.

What the science actually says

Researchers who study nicotine say the claims are not supported by the evidence — or actively misrepresent it.

Dr. Jonathan Foulds, a professor of public health sciences and psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine, put it plainly: "It doesn't make you more intelligent, it doesn't make you funnier, it doesn't make you able to write interesting novels, any of those things. It makes you able to focus in boring situations and stay with the topic a little bit longer."

Dr. Paul Newhouse, director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine at Vanderbilt University, has led many of the studies that influencers cite. He said that while a small amount of nicotine can benefit concentration in certain circumstances — such as among some people with mild cognitive impairment — many of the claims "misrepresent the research."

The neuroprotection claims are the most overreaching. The data on nicotine and Parkinson's or Alzheimer's is preliminary and far from definitive. Even if a neuroprotective effect were real, it would involve controlled dosing in clinical settings — not recreational pouch use by healthy adults.

Dr. Adam Leventhal, director of the Institute for Addiction Science at the University of Southern California, pointed to a practical problem the influencers don't mention: tolerance. Over time, users build up a tolerance and become dependent, struggling to concentrate without nicotine. The "cognitive enhancement" diminishes as the body adapts — leaving users needing nicotine just to feel normal.

Dr. Jeremiah Mock, a health anthropologist at UCSF who has studied nicotine and tobacco products, said: "It's alarming that people who appear to be very health conscious are allowing themselves to participate in a giant human biology experiment when we know that nicotine is extremely harmful."

Nicotine is addictive. It can increase blood pressure and heart rate, which over time may raise the risk of heart disease. It may be harmful to developing brains, which is why health authorities worldwide restrict sales to minors. A Cochrane review updated in 2025 found that the evidence on whether pouches help people quit smoking is "uncertain" — there is not enough data to say.

Mark Dohner, a 32-year-old musician and YouTuber, told the New York Times about his experience after trying pouches for focus. "I was like, maybe this will give me a boost," he said. It did — at first. But he became addicted, and every time he tried to quit, he developed intense brain fog. He now uses a pouch as soon as he wakes up most mornings.

Why it matters

The wellness rebrand has two effects that concern public health researchers.

First, it expands the market beyond existing nicotine users. If pouches are positioned as a health product, people who would never have touched nicotine — particularly young people — may start. The "Culture Apothecary" podcast, hosted by MAHA figure Alex Clark, ran an episode titled "Nicotine is NOT the Villain: What Big Pharma Hides from Parents" that suggested nicotine could treat Covid and cancer. Clark told the Times she had not tried nicotine herself.

Second, it amplifies the tobacco industry's harm-reduction argument. As Dr. Mock noted, the "evangelizing" around nicotine as a wellness product is "fortuitous for the tobacco industry" because it reinforces the idea that nicotine itself is not the problem — only the way it is delivered.

That argument has a kernel of truth: combusted tobacco is far more dangerous than nicotine alone, and pouches eliminate the smoke. But "less harmful than cigarettes" is not the same as "good for you." Nicotine pouches may be a useful tool for smokers trying to reduce harm. They are not a wellness supplement.

The bottom line

Nicotine pouches are less hazardous than smoking. That is a meaningful harm-reduction distinction, and it matters for the roughly 28% of US adults who still smoke.

But the wellness influencer framing — that pouches are a "natural" cognitive enhancer, a neuroprotective agent, or a health hack — is not supported by the evidence. The science on nicotine and cognition is preliminary, limited to specific clinical populations, and does not translate to "healthy adults should use nicotine for focus." The drug is addictive, carries cardiovascular risks, and may harm developing brains.

As Dr. Leventhal put it: "If there really was a health benefit for nicotine, then the medical community would be recommending it to their patients. And what's happening is the opposite."

SOURCES:

• Dani Blum, "Influencers Are Spinning Nicotine as a 'Natural' Health Hack," New York Times, April 20, 2026. Via DNYUZ
• "The influencers pushing the 'positive health benefits' of nicotine pouches — ZYN and VELO," The Independent, April 22, 2026. Independent
• "'People are more willing to listen to an influencer': How nicotine became a problematic health trend," Euronews, May 9, 2026. Euronews
• "Can nicotine make you smarter? Why biohackers — and conservative pundits — are embracing the controversial compound," Seemayo, July 16, 2026. Seemayo
• Hartmann-Boyce J, et al. "Oral nicotine pouches for cessation or reduction of use of other tobacco or nicotine products." Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2025. Cochrane
• Athletic Nicotine® official site: athleticnicotine.com
• "Female Founder Terry Seal Launches 1N Nicotine Products, Inspired By Biohacking Design Principles," SME Today, February 10, 2026. SME Today

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