THE SECRET TO SMOKING LESS?
Study eyes low- nicotine cigarettes
A new study might help the push for regulations to limit nicotine in cigarettes. Smokers who switched to special low- nicotine ones wound up smoking less and were more likely to try to quit, researchers found.
The study only lasted six weeks, and researchers call the evidence preliminary. But they say it’s the first large study to show that slashing nicotine, perhaps below an addiction threshold, is safe and leads to less smoking.
The Food and Drug Administration was given the power in 2009 to mandate lower nicotine levels if it would help public health, but has not yet done so.
“This, I think, provides support” for lowering nicotine, said one study leader, Dr. Neal Benowitz of the University of California, San Francisco.
Results are in the New England Journal of Medicine. The FDA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse paid for the study. Two study leaders have advised companies that make smoking cessation aids, and two testified in tobacco lawsuits.
Smoking is a leading cause of heart disease and cancer. Tar and other substances inhaled through smoking make cigarettes deadly, but the nicotine in tobacco is what makes them addictive.
Some earlier work suggests they might not be if nicotine was limited to roughly 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco. Most cigarettes contain around 15.8 milligrams per gram of tobacco.
There are no low- nicotine cigarettes on the market; the government made special ones with several lower nicotine levels to test.
For the study, about 800 people who smoked five or more cigarettes a day and had no interest in quitting were assigned to smoke either their usual brand or an experimental type with nicotine ranging from a low of 0.4 milligram to 15.8 milligrams, the level in most cigarettes.
All low- nicotine cigarette users reported fewer symptoms of nicotine dependence on various standardized tests.
The study was not intended or designed to get smokers to quit. But twice as many in the low- nicotine group than those smoking standard- strength cigarettes — 35 per cent versus 17 per cent — said they had tried in the month after the study ended.
A longer study is underway to see whether a gradual or abrupt shift to low- nicotine cigarettes is best.
Two large cigarette makers — R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which sells Camel and other brands, and Altria Group Inc., which owns Philip Morris USA — declined to comment.