New research may spur smokers to switch to reduced nicotine cigarettes and scientists may be a step closer to figuring out how to prevent asthma.
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The CDC has estimated that 42.1 million Americans smoke. But the law allowed the FDA to “explore whether there is a level below which nicotine yields do not produce dependence”, and said the agency should make recommendations accordingly to the Department of Health and Human Services. Participants were given cigarettes containing that dose, as well as 5.2 mg/g, 2.4 mg/g, 1.3 mg/g and 0.4 mg/g.
“The follow-up period was relatively short – six weeks – and the study was not statistically powered to measure clinical outcomes”, said Tindle, who served as the lead study physician while working at the University of Pittsburgh through the summer of 2014.
Smokers trying to quit have always been under the impression that moving to “light” or “ultra light” cigarettes would help them beat the addiction. They had been instructed to smoke their common model or experimental cigarettes – all offered freed from cost – with one in every of six totally different ranges of nicotine.
The research, the most important ever performed on diminished-nicotine cigarettes, was created to offer the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration a scientific foundation for reducing again on the addictive chemical in tobacco merchandise. There are no low-nicotine cigarettes on the market; the government made special ones with several lower nicotine levels to test.
Those who were assigned to the group with 5.2 mg of nicotine per gram smoked an average of 20.8 cigarettes per day, which did not differ significantly from the average number among those who smoked control cigarettes. People who smoke went from 21.three cigarettes per week with 15.eight mg of nicotine to sixteen. “This study not only demonstrates that it’s possible to reduce addictiveness, but provides solid evidence of the level of nicotine needed to accomplish that goal”. That compares to 21 or 22 cigarettes for those given the 15.8-milligram cigarettes or their usual brand. But the study found that numerous longtime smokers who did get very-low-level-nicotine cigarettes did suspect that was the case. Thus it was only the lower nicotine cigarettes (less than 5.2 mg of nicotine per gram of tobacco) that produced the result of smoking fewer cigarettes per day.
Almost 35% of those assigned to smoke very low-nicotine cigarettes for six weeks said they had tried to quit in the 30 days after the study ended.
A new study might help the push for regulations to limit nicotine in cigarettes.
“The FDA has the authority to set product standards for tobacco products”, Donny said.
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“When so many people are dying from the results of smoking the most addictive drug known to man, a bias towards action seems well justified”, he said.
