Low-nicotine cigarettes may reduce smoking, even encourage quitting

A large test of cigarettes with reduced nicotine finds that they help smokers cut down on the number of smokes they consume each day, at least in the short term, and that cigarettes with the lowest nicotine levels may even encourage smokers to quit.

The cigarettes tested were not the "low-nicotine" or "light" products that have been on the market for decades. Those brands use tobacco with regular nicotine levels and a vent system that tries to make it harder for a smoker to inhale the powerfully-addictive substance.

After their introduction, studies showed that smokers quickly learned how to manipulate them to inhale enough nicotine anyway.

"Smokers got around it by inhaling more deeply and more often. That's been the accepted truism," said Dr. Norman Edelman, senior scientific advisor for the American Lung Association, who was not involved in the research. "Now here comes this very well done study and it shows that if you simply reduce the nicotine in the tobacco, that doesn't seem to happen. Smokers don't seem to increase their consumption of cigarettes because they're getting less nicotine."

"These cigarettes don't have much nicotine in the tobacco itself, so no matter what the user does, it's just not there to extract," chief study author Eric Donny of the University of Pittsburgh told Reuters Health.

"This is a very different approach, and this one might make smokers less dependent on cigarettes and better able to quit," he said.

In their study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Donny and his colleagues found that an 85 percent to 97 percent reduction in nicotine produced a 23 percent reduction in the number of cigarettes smoked.

And participants who spent six weeks smoking the cigarettes with the lowest nicotine content were twice as likely to report trying to quit smoking within 30 days after the end of the study.

The experiment was done on 840 smokers who told the investigators when they signed up that they had no interest in quitting. They were paid up to $835 for their participation. The researchers used questionnaires to measure smoking dependence, nicotine withdrawal, depression and craving.

The study, the largest ever done on reduced-nicotine cigarettes, was designed to give the US Food and Drug Administration a scientific basis for cutting back on the addictive chemical in tobacco products.

"We believe these data support exploration of a national nicotine-reduction policy, and we recommend that additional attention be paid to low-nicotine cigarettes as a potential clinical smoking-cessation resource," Drs. Michael Fiore and Timothy Baker of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health write in a Journal commentary.

Edelman, however, said he doubts the new findings will be enough to impose regulations.

"Whether you can leap from this to a new policy is kind of problematic," he said. "The study was only six weeks. In the smoking cessation business, we don't even look at a six week study. Six months or a year is the real test of whether an intervention is effective or not."

All the volunteers were smoking at least five cigarettes per day. They were told to smoke their regular brand or experimental cigarettes -- all provided free of charge -- with one of six different levels of nicotine. At the end of the six-week test study, they were asked to abstain for at least 18 hours so their craving and withdrawal symptoms could be measured.

Cigarettes typically have about 15.8 milligrams of nicotine per gram of tobacco. When nicotine levels were reduced to as low as 5.2 mg, the researchers saw no significant change in smoking behavior.

But when the nicotine levels dropped to 2.4 mg or lower, the number of cigarettes smoked showed a modest decline. Smokers went from 21.3 cigarettes per week with 15.8 mg of nicotine to 16.5 cigarettes per week with 2.4 mg of nicotine.

The same effect was seen when the nicotine level was dropped even lower, to 0.4 mg, a level believed to be too low to be addicting.

People on the low-nicotine cigarettes also reported less craving and less dependence.

Thirty days after the end of the study, about 35 percent of the volunteers who had been smoking the low-nicotine cigarettes had tried to quit versus 17 percent of those consuming regular-strength cigarettes.

"Whether cigarettes have lots of nicotine or a little bit of nicotine, they're still unsafe," Edelman said. "The best way of protecting your health is to quit."

source: interaksyon.com

Quitting smoking makes you happier, says UK study

PARIS - Moderate or heavy smokers who quit tobacco get a boost in mental wellbeing that, for people who are anxious or stressed, is equivalent to taking anti-depressants, a study said Thursday.

British researchers examined 26 published investigations into the mental health of smokers.

They looked at standardized scorecards for symptoms of anxiety, depression, stress and quality of life, derived from questionnaires completed by volunteers.

The smokers were 44 years old on average and smoked between 10 and 40 cigarettes a day. They were questioned before they tried to give up smoking and again after their attempt -- an average of six months later.

Those who succeeded in quitting reported reduced depression, anxiety and stress and had a more positive outlook on life compared with those who continued smoking.

"The effect sizes are equal or larger than those of anti-depressant treatment for mood and anxiety disorders," said the study, published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Quitters who had been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders enjoyed a similar improvement.

Lead investigator Gemma Taylor of the University of Birmingham's School of Health and Population Sciences said she hoped the findings would dispel a widespread misconception about smoking.

"It's a common myth that smoking actually is good for your mental health -- 'smoking relieves stress,' 'smoking helps you relax,' 'smoking helps you enjoy things' -- and that common myth is really hard to overcome," Taylor told AFP in a phone interview.

But actually, the study showed that "when you stop smoking and you break the nicotine withdrawal cycle, your mental health improves."

Taylor pointed to a mainstream theory in tobacco addiction research: that a smoker's psychological state fluctuates throughout the day as a result of exposure to nicotine.

The sense of calm or wellbeing from a cigarette is followed immediately afterwards by classic withdrawal signs of a depressed mood, anxiety or agitation.

Smokers, though, tend to misattribute these symptoms and blame them on stress or other factors.

And because nicotine has a calming effect, they perceive that cigarettes improve their mental health.

Smoking is already blamed for a wide range of physical diseases and disorders, ranging from cancer, blindness and cardiac problems to diabetes, gum disease and impotence.

The UN's World Health Organization (WHO) estimated last July that tobacco kills almost six million people each year, a toll that will rise to eight million annually in 2030.

About four out of every five deaths will occur in low- and middle-income nations, it said.

Despite a decline in smoking prevalence in some nations, in overall terms the number of people smoking today is greater than in 1980, due to population growth, according to a paper published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

source: interaksyon.com

Cutting smoking saves more in health bills than lost tax: EU

RUSSELS - The cost and health benefits of getting people not to smoke and better still, not to start, more than outweigh the taxes the tobacco industry pays to governments, the European Commission said Monday.

Irish Health Minister James Reilly, presenting the EU's new draft tobacco law in the European parliament, said smokers paid some 20 billion euros ($26.4 billion) annually in tax but health costs associated with smoking came to 23 billion euros.

On top of that were another eight billion euros in lost production and other costs due to smokers' higher rates of sickness, leading to days off and lower efficiency.

It is a "no-brainer, ethically and economically," Reilly told parliament, dismissing out of hand the argument that tobacco is too important economically to be tampered with.

EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg made the same point, noting that some 700,000 people die prematurely as a result of smoking each year -- equal to a city about the size of Frankfurt in Germany.

The new tobacco directive, which parliament and all 27 member states will have to approve, aims simply to save those lives, Borg said, adding that the legislation needed to be brought up to date as the industry introduces new products, especially those targeting the young.

"Tobacco should look and taste like tobacco," Borg said, holding up new products brightly colored and looking like lipstick or perfume so as to attract younger people.

Accordingly, the directive stipulates that 75 percent of a cigarette package must carry health warnings, and that certain "characterizing" flavors such as vanilla or menthol be banned.

"My aim is that when people look at a tobacco product they realize that it will damage their health," Borg said.

In January, thousands of tobacconists from across Europe marched on European Union headquarters to protest against the planned directive which will take about three years to come into effect once passed.

source: interaksyon.com

Some 42,000 Americans die from secondhand smoke annually: study

WASHINGTON - Secondhand smoke is to blame for some 42,000 nonsmoker deaths annually in the United States, including nearly 900 infant deaths, according to a new University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) study.

Altogether, annual deaths from secondhand smoke represent nearly 600,000 years of potential life lost -- an average of 14.2 years per person -- and $6.6 billion in lost productivity, amounting to $158,000 per death, the researchers say.




The new research, published on Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, reveals that despite public health efforts to reduce tobacco use, secondhand smoke continues to take a grievous toll on nonsmokers.

"In general, fewer people are smoking and many have made lifestyle changes, but our research shows that the impacts of secondhand smoke are nonetheless very large," said lead author Wendy Max, a professor of health economics at the UCSF School of Nursing.

Exposure to secondhand smoke is linked to a number of fatal illnesses including heart and lung disease, as well as conditions affecting newborns such as low birth weight and respiratory distress syndrome.

source: interaksyon.com