Digital cigarettes have attracted media and shopper consideration for claims of their addictive nature, number of flavors and elevated use amongst teenagers, sparking regulatory oversight and insurance policies. A Penn State School of Drugs research means that these units might assist folks lower their dependence on flamable cigarettes – which include an array of dangerous chemical substances referred to as toxicants – with out rising their total nicotine dependence.
Smoking is a number one reason for loss of life within the US, and regardless of curiosity in quitting and the supply of FDA-approved cessation strategies, people who smoke nonetheless battle to stop. Some public well being consultants have proposed e-cigarettes as a ‘decreased hurt’ various to cigarettes for these not or capable of stop, citing stories like one from the Nationwide Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Drugs, which discovered that substitution of e-cigarettes for flamable cigarettes decreased customers’ exposures to carcinogens and different dangerous toxicants.
Jessica Yingst, assistant professor of public well being sciences and Penn State Most cancers Institute researcher, and colleagues on the Penn State Heart for Analysis on Tobacco and Well being research e-cigarettes and whether or not they will help nicotine customers give up smoking or scale back their publicity to dangerous toxicants present in cigarettes. Their newest research investigated a typical query -; whether or not initiation of digital cigarette use to cut back cigarette smoking might doubtlessly improve nicotine dependence.
Analysis on this subject is conflicted as a result of, in prior research, individuals used their very own units with unknown nicotine supply profiles. Our research used units with recognized nicotine supply profiles, which allowed us to successfully evaluate how the various ranges of nicotine in a tool would possibly have an effect on consumer nicotine dependence and skill to cut back cigarette consumption.”
Jessica Yingst, assistant professor of public well being sciences and Penn State Most cancers Institute researcher
The researchers enrolled 520 individuals taken with decreasing their cigarette consumption however with no plans or curiosity to stop smoking and instructed them to cut back their cigarette consumption over the six-month research interval. Contributors randomly acquired an e-cigarette that delivered 36, 8 or 0 mg/mL of nicotine, or a cigarette substitute that contained no tobacco, as an assist of their efforts to cut back their cigarette consumption.
Contributors self-reported their cigarette and e-cigarette dependence at one, three and 6 months utilizing validated measures of dependence, together with a Penn State-developed questionnaire that ranges from 0 (under no circumstances dependent) to twenty (extremely dependent). Urine samples have been additionally collected all through the research to measure cotinine, a biomarker for nicotine publicity.
At six months, all individuals within the e-cigarette teams reported important, decreased cigarette consumption, with these within the 36 mg/mL group smoking the least variety of cigarettes per day. These within the e-cigarette teams reported considerably decrease dependence on the Penn State Cigarette Dependence Index than these within the cigarette substitute group.
Contributors additionally reported their e-cigarette dependence utilizing the Penn State E-Cigarette Dependence Index. E-cigarette dependence didn’t considerably change all through the research, apart from individuals within the 36 mg/mL group who noticed important, elevated dependence over the course of the research, but nonetheless a lot decrease in comparison with cigarette dependence. Urine cotinine ranges remained constant throughout all teams all through the research, suggesting that there was no improve in total publicity to nicotine in the course of the research. The outcomes have been printed within the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Analysis.
“Our outcomes recommend that utilizing e-cigarettes or a cigarette substitute to cut back cigarette consumption can lead to a discount of self-reported cigarette use and dependence,” stated Yingst, who directs the School of Drugs’s Physician of Public Well being Program. “Importantly, use of the excessive focus e-cigarette didn’t improve total nicotine dependence, and was related to a better discount in cigarette smoking in comparison with the cigarette substitute.”
Whereas it has been hypothesized that using e-cigarettes might improve total nicotine dependence, the analysis staff stated their research discovered that initiating e-cigarette use to cut back cigarette consumption resulted in decreased cigarette dependence and low e-cigarette dependence. Sooner or later, they may consider the well being results of fully switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes.
To study extra about these research and others performed on the Penn State Heart for Analysis on Tobacco and Well being, please go to their web site. They’re at the moment recruiting individuals for a number of research.
sources:
Penn State School of Drugs
Journal reference:
Yingst, J., et al. (2022) Modifications in Nicotine Dependence Amongst People who smoke Utilizing Digital Cigarettes to Cut back Cigarette Smoking in a Randomized Managed Trial. Nicotine and Tobacco Analysis. doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntac153.
