E-cigarette use to reduce cigarette smoking may not increase nicotine dependence

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 Faculty of Drugs examine means that these units might assist individuals lower their dependence on flamable cigarettes—which comprise an array of dangerous chemical substances known as toxicants—with out growing their total nicotine dependence.

Smoking is a number one explanation for loss of life within the U.S., and regardless of curiosity in quitting and the provision of FDA-approved cessation strategies, people who smoke nonetheless battle to give up. Some public well being consultants have proposed e-cigarettes as a “diminished hurt” different to cigarettes for these not or in a position to give up, citing reviews like one from the Nationwide Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Drugs, which discovered that substitution of e-cigarettes for flamable cigarettes diminished 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 Middle for Analysis on Tobacco and Well being examine e-cigarettes and whether or not they may also help nicotine customers quit smoking or scale back their publicity to dangerous toxicants present in cigarettes. Their newest examine investigated a typical query—whether or not initiation of digital cigarette use to scale back cigarette smoking might probably 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,” Yingst stated. “Our examine used units with recognized nicotine supply profiles, which allowed us to successfully examine how the various ranges of nicotine in a tool would possibly have an effect on person nicotine dependence and skill to scale back cigarette consumption.”

The researchers enrolled 520 individuals fascinated by lowering their cigarette consumption however with no plans or curiosity to give up smoking, and instructed them to scale back their cigarette consumption over the six-month examine 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 scale 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 ranged from 0 (in no way dependent) to twenty (extremely dependent). Urine samples had been additionally collected all through the examine 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 examine, except for individuals within the 36 mg/mL group who noticed important, elevated dependence over the course of the examine, but nonetheless a lot decrease compared with cigarette dependence. Urine cotinine ranges remained constant throughout all teams all through the examine, suggesting that there was no improve in total publicity to nicotine through the examine. The outcomes had been revealed within the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Analysis.

“Our outcomes counsel that utilizing e-cigarettes or a cigarette substitute to scale back cigarette consumption can lead to a discount of self-reported cigarette use and dependence,” stated Yingst, who directs the Faculty 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 group stated their examine discovered that initiating e-cigarette use to scale back cigarette consumption resulted in diminished cigarette dependence and low e-cigarette dependence. Sooner or later, they’ll consider the well being results of fully switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes.