Category: Science

  • A glowing example

    A glowing example

    British American Tobacco says that toxicant levels in vapor from its heat-not-burn (HNB) tobacco product, glo™, have been found to be about 90 percent lower than the levels in traditional-cigarette smoke.

    In heating rather than burning tobacco, glo operated at much lower temperatures than did a cigarette: about 240̊C versus 900̊C, BAT said in a press note issued to coincide with the publication in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology of the results of a BAT study.

    “Our studies on glo reveal that this product produces significantly lower levels of harmful or potentially harmful components compared to a cigarette,” Dr. James Murphy, head of reduced risk substantiation at BAT was quoted as saying. “The vapor produced was found to have significantly reduced numbers and lower levels of toxicants compared to cigarette smoke, and so it should in principle expose consumers to much less toxicants,” he says.

    ‘It is the toxicants in smoke that cause most smoking-related diseases,’ said BAT in its note.

    ‘Scientists at British American Tobacco analysed and compared the vapor from glo™ – a commercially available tobacco heating product (THP) – and smoke from a reference cigarette (3R4F) and found substantial reductions in the glo™ emissions for all smoke toxicant groups measured. Most cigarette smoke toxicants could not be detected in the glo™ vapor.’

    “This comprehensive chemical assessment is part of a science-based approach that we have developed to demonstrate the reduced-risk potential of THPs and other next generation products relative to smoking cigarettes,” said Murphy. “We believe that such an approach is essential to communicating to consumers and regulators that the available information on our products is based on sound, evidence-based science.”

    ‘The scientists set out to measure 126 substances, including toxicants that have been identified by Health Canada, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the WHO Study Group on Tobacco Product Regulation (TobReg) as harmful or potentially harmful to health, and other compounds produced by burning tobacco,’ the note said.

    ‘A smoking robot was used to generate smoke or vapor in the laboratory in a way that mimics realistic use of the products. Air samples were also produced with which to compare the smoke and vapor.

    ‘An analysis of the emissions showed that glo™ produces a much simpler aerosol than cigarettes.  glo™ emitted over 95 percent less, on average, of 102 of 126 compounds that could be measured, compared to smoke. For the nine toxicants that the WHO proposes for lowering in cigarette smoke, the overall average reduction was 97.1 percent, while for the 18 requiring mandatory reporting by the FDA, it was 97.5 percent.  Twenty-four substances could not be detected/quantified in the glo™ emissions, smoke or both.

    ‘The findings add to a body of evidence that could be used to support glo™ as a potential reduced-risk product compared to conventional cigarettes.’

  • Nicotine forum announced

    Nicotine forum announced

    The organizers of the Global Forum on Nicotine say that their fifth annual event, GFN18, is due to be held at the Marriott Hotel, Warsaw, Poland, on June 14-16.

    The theme for the forum is ‘Rethinking Nicotine’.

    The program will comprise plenary sessions, symposiums, panel discussions and poster presentations – including video posters.

    The program committee is inviting abstracts for oral presentations and posters. The deadline for the submission of oral presentations is February 11, while the deadline for the submission of poster presentations is April 1.

    The organizers are making up to three scholarships available for early-career researchers who are chosen to make oral presentations.

    The program committee will use selected abstracts to construct themed sessions.

    Authors will be informed if their abstracts have been accepted before the posting of the near-final program on April 22.

    Once again, the International Symposium on Nicotine Technology (ISoNTech) will run alongside GFN18.

    The GFN18 website is at: https://gfn.net.co/welcome.

  • Nicotine gene identified

    Nicotine gene identified

    A DNA variant located in the DNMT3B gene and commonly found in people of European and African descent increases the likelihood of developing nicotine dependence, smoking heavily, and developing lung cancer, according to a story on sciencedaily.com citing a new study led by RTI International.

    The story quoted World Health Organization figures claiming that, worldwide, nearly one billion people smoke and six million premature deaths occur annually from cigarette smoking. Smoking was said to be the leading cause of preventable death and one person was said to die every six seconds from smoking-related causes.

    The new study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, is said to be the largest genome-wide association study of nicotine dependence. Researchers studied more than 38,600 former and current smokers from the US, Iceland, Finland, and the Netherlands.

    “This new finding widens the scope of how genetic factors are known to influence nicotine dependence,” said Dana Hancock, Ph.D., genetic epidemiologist at RTI and co-author of the study.

    “The variant that we identified is common, occurring in 44 percent of Europeans or European Americans and 77 percent of African Americans, and it exerts important effects on gene regulation in [the] human brain, specifically in the cerebellum, which has long been overlooked in the study of addiction.”

    The genetic variant was linked to an increased risk of nicotine dependence by testing nearly 18 million variants across the genome for association with nicotine dependence. The variant was also tested in independent studies and found to be associated with heavier smoking and with an increased risk of lung cancer.

    The story is at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171010124112.htm.

  • Vaping a life saver

    Up to 6.6 million US cigarette smokers will live substantially longer than they otherwise would if cigarette smoking is replaced by vaping over a 10-year period, according to a Medical Xpress story citing research published in the journal Tobacco Control.

    The study, by a research team led by investigators from the Georgetown Lombardi Cancer Center, Washington, DC, looked at a strategy of switching cigarette smokers to e-cigarette use in the US to accelerate tobacco control progress.

    The team considered an optimistic and a pessimistic scenario, ‘differing in terms of the relative harms of e-cigarettes compared with cigarettes and the impact on overall initiation, cessation and switching’.

    It found that, compared with the Status Quo, replacement of cigarette by e-cigarette use over a 10-year period yielded 6.6 million fewer premature deaths with 86.7 million fewer life years lost under the optimistic scenario. ‘Under the pessimistic scenario, 1.6 million premature deaths are averted with 20.8 million fewer life years lost,’ the team found. ‘The largest gains are among younger cohorts, with a 0.5 gain in average life expectancy projected for the age 15 years cohort in 2016.’

    The team said that the tobacco control community had been divided regarding the role of e-cigarettes in tobacco control.

    ‘Our projections show that a strategy of replacing cigarette smoking with vaping would yield substantial life year gains, even under pessimistic assumptions regarding cessation, initiation and relative harm.’

    The Medical Xpress story is at: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-10-years-life-smokers-e-cigarettes.html.

    The Tobacco Control report is at: http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2017/08/30/tobaccocontrol-2017-053759?papetoc=

  • The Vype Dossier

    Proving the reduced-risk potential of an e-cigarette

    By Marina Murphy

    Marina Murphy is head of scientific media relations at British American Tobacco.

    We are all well-aware of how fast-paced and dynamic the vapor category is. New and better products are being developed all the time, and while innovation is certainly key, it must be correctly balanced with ensuring quality and safety. Consumers are rightly concerned over quality and safety, and such concern is often cited as one of the biggest barriers to moving to vaping. That is why much of British American Tobacco’s (BAT) research effort focuses on ensuring high standards of quality. The company also spends a lot of time developing tests to assess our products relative to conventional cigarettes to establish their potential to be reduced-harm.

    This effort has now resulted in what is the most comprehensive scientific data set to date for an e-cigarette, Vype ePen. This data set helps establish the potential for Vype ePen to be reduced-risk compared with cigarettes and represents the kind of testing that could be used to assess the potential of other next-generation products.

    It is this kind of information that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration wants to see when a company submits a modified-risk tobacco product (MRTP) application to introduce novel reduced-risk tobacco products to the U.S. market.

    Testing, testing

    The Vype data set was created using results collected from a series of scientific tests that BAT specifically developed to assess its products.

    The company’s scientists tested everything from how people use Vype ePen—which includes looking at the minutiae of how often they puff, how deeply and for how long—to the content of the vapor and what that vapor does to cells in the lab.

    In each case, the scientists compared Vype vapor and what it does to smoke and what it does. The results of any one of these tests on its own is important, but they don’t tell the whole story. But when you take them all together, you start to get a feel for the big picture. This picture reveals a real potential for this product to have a reduced health risk compared with traditional cigarettes.

    This ties in with the assessment of several high-profile public health authorities, such as NHS Health Scotland, the Royal College of Physicians and Public Health England, who believe e-cigarettes are likely to offer in the order of a 95 percent reduced health risk compared with conventional cigarettes.

    BAT’s tests demonstrate the relatively simple composition of Vype ePen vapor compared with conventional cigarette smoke (Figure 1). There are around 95 percent fewer toxicants in Vype ePen vapor, and the vapor has a much-reduced or no biological impact on human cells* in the laboratory, compared with conventional cigarette smoke, depending on the test used (Figure 2).

    Figure 1: Filter pads with Vype ePen aerosol (left) and smoke from 3R4F reference cigarettes (right)

    Tests in the clinic, which involve humans, revealed that Vype ePen vapor delivers nicotine to the consumer as efficiently as cigarette smoke. This suggests that this product could be a satisfactory alternative to a cigarette. A reduced-harm product is no good if nobody wants to use it. And BAT used predictive modeling to demonstrate that making e-cigarettes available can have an overall harm reduction effect on a population because more smokers will quit.

    Taken together, these results form the basis of a comprehensive dossier of scientific data that lay the groundwork for establishing the potential of Vype ePen to have a reduced-risk potential compared with cigarettes. The results were published in the peer-reviewed journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology.

    “A science-based approach is vital to gathering the evidence needed to demonstrate the reduced-risk potential of e-cigarettes and other products, which is why testing products like Vype ePen in this way is so important,” said David O’Reilly, group scientific and R&D director at BAT. “We intend for this to be the first of many applications of our scientific assessment framework,” he said.

    Figure 2: Chemical analysis of cigarette smoke and e-cigarette smoke

     

     

  • Recruiting for nicotine study

    Recruiting for nicotine study

    Participants are being sought for a US study to assess nicotine uptake from electronic- and combustible-cigarettes, according to a note on the clinicaltrials.gov website.

    The stated purpose of the study, which is being sponsored by RAI Services Company, a subsidiary of Reynolds American, is: ‘To determine the rate and amount of nicotine uptake with 10-minute ad libitum use of five different marketed electronic cigarettes, or one combustible cigarette (CC). Furthermore, to measure overall product liking by subjects to assess potential willingness to seek out the Electronic Cigarette (EC) again in the future.’

    The website described the study as ‘a single-center, randomized, open-label, parallel study during which up to 210 healthy adult subjects [21-60 years of age], consisting of 35 subjects per product group, will be enrolled’.

    ‘Subjects will be evaluated for plasma nicotine uptake, as well as overall product liking,’ according to the description.

    ‘The study will involve the use of five different marketed ECs or one CC in tobacco consumers who are exclusive smokers (i.e., naïve EC users) or dual users of cigarettes and ECs (i.e., intermittent EC users).’

  • Cigarette butts a resource

    Cigarette butts a resource

    Cigarette butts can be turned into a resource for killing mosquitoes, according to a story in the Economic Times of India citing a new study by an international team of scientists.

    This method of pest control was described in the latest issue of the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

    The report said: ‘A single treatment with CB [cigarette butt] extracts and silver nanostructures – synthesized using the extract – significantly reduced egg hatchability of anopheles stephensi, the mosquito species that spreads the P.falciparum malaria parasite’.

    Low doses of the silver nanostructures were said also to inhibit the growth of a soil bacteria, Bacillus subtilis, the organism, Klebsiella pneumoniae, that causes pneumonia, and Salmonella typhi, that causes typhoid.

    Normally, the larvae of malaria mosquitoes are eaten while in water by their predators, small crustaceans called M. aspericornis, and, according to the researchers, the predation efficiency of these crustaceans is not affected by the introduction of CB-synthesized nanoparticles.

    Meanwhile, smoke toxicity experiments conducted with adult mosquitoes showed that the use of CB-based mosquito coils led to mortality rates comparable to those obtained with the use of standard coils containing the pesticide permethrin.

    The research was carried about by scientists in India, Italy, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.

  • Using science to reduce risk

    Using science to reduce risk

    Scientists at British American Tobacco say they have created the most comprehensive database of scientific test results for an electronic cigarette.

    The results of the studies provide evidence that the use of a Vype ePen could be substantially less risky than is smoking a traditional cigarette.

    The database was said to have been created using data collected from a series of scientific tests that could form the basis of a template to support health-related claims such as “reduced risk” for e-cigarettes and next generation products, such as tobacco-heating devices, when the use of those products was compared to that of conventional cigarettes.

    “This is a very new consumer category and both consumers and regulators rightly want as much information as possible about the products available,” said Dr David O’Reilly, group scientific and R&D director at BAT.

    “We believe a science-based approach is vital to gathering the evidence needed to demonstrate the reduced-risk potential of e-cigarettes and other products, which is why testing products like Vype ePen in this way is so important.  We intend for this to be the first of many applications of our scientific assessment framework,” he said.

    The application of BAT’s approach to the scientific assessment of potentially reduced-risk products is reported today in the journal Regulatory Pharmacology and Toxicology, where the results of 17 published studies on Vype ePen are described.

    The tests included Preclinical studies that demonstrated the relatively simple composition of Vype ePen vapor compared to that of conventional cigarette smoke: that demonstrated there were about 95 percent less toxicants in Vype ePen vapor than in smoke. Further tests revealed that this vapor had no biological impact on human cells tested in the laboratory, or at least a much-reduced impact when compared to that of conventional cigarette smoke.

    Clinical Studies, which involved humans, revealed that Vype ePen vapor delivered nicotine to the consumer as efficiently as cigarette smoke did, which is an indicator of whether the product might provide smokers with a satisfactory alternative to a cigarette.

    Population studies, which use predictive modelling to estimate an overall harm reduction effect of the product on a population, indicated that the wide availability of an e-cigarette such as a Vype ePen could have an overall harm-reduction effect because more people might quit smoking when e-cigarettes were widely available.

    In a press note, BAT said that, taken together, these results formed the basis of a comprehensive dossier of scientific data that laid the groundwork for establishing the Vype ePen’s reduced-risk potential.

    ‘This dossier of results presents the kind of information that regulators like the US Food and Drug Administration want when any company submits a Modified Risk Tobacco Product application in order to introduce novel reduced-risk tobacco products to the US market,’ the note said.

    ‘It can take years to create such a dossier and our scientists say that it would be impractical to create a new dossier every time a product is tweaked.’

    “This category is so fast moving that there are new and improved products appearing all the time,” said Dr James Murphy, head of reduced risk substantiation at BAT. “If for example, a scientific dossier was required before these products could go on the market, this could drastically impact the availability of new and improved products and their value in tobacco harm reduction.

    “Importantly, this sort of framework could provide datasets for product families so that full scientific tests wouldn’t need to be done with every new generation of the same product – making the innovation process faster whilst still giving consumers and regulators assurances around the relative risk of each product. This could mean improved products with harm reduction potential can be developed, assessed and brought to market more quickly without duplicating tests. We are urging regulators and public health officials to look at this methodology in this context.” Murphy said.

  • Tobacco antis ‘gut-punched’

    Tobacco antis ‘gut-punched’

    The surprise announcement by the former head of the World Health Organization’s Tobacco Free Initiative, Derek Yach, that he would head a newly-established organization called the ‘Foundation for a Smoke-free World’ to ‘accelerate the end of smoking’ was met with gut-punched disappointment by those who have worked for decades to achieve that goal, according to a BMJ blog by news editor, Marita Hefler.

    The blog was headed, A ‘Frank Statement’ for the 21st Century?, and included the names of 14 people: Ruth E. Malone, Simon Chapman, Prakash C. Gupta, Rima Nakkash, Tih Ntiabang, Eduardo Bianco, Yussuf Saloojee, Prakit Vathesatogkit, Laurent Huber, Chris Bostic, Pascal Diethelm, Cynthia Callard, Neil Collishaw and Anna B. Gilmore.

    ‘Unmoved by a soft-focus video featuring Yach looking pensively off into the distance from a high-level balcony while smokers at ground level stubbed out Marlboros and discussed how hard it was to quit, leading tobacco control organizations were shocked to hear that the new organization was funded with a $1 billion, twelve-year commitment from tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI),’ the piece said.

    ‘PMI, which has been working for decades to rebrand itself as a “socially responsible” company while continuing to promote sales of its top-branded Marlboro cigarettes and oppose policies that would genuinely reduce their use, clearly believes this investment will further its “harm reduction” agenda, led by its new heat-not-burn product, IQOS. But don’t worry, the Foundation assures everyone that “PMI and the tobacco industry are precluded from having any influence over how the Foundation spends its funds or focuses its activities”.

    ‘Except that is what a broad range of industry front groups, sometimes headed by respected and even well-intentioned leaders, have been saying since the “Frank Statement” of 1954.

    ‘The long and sordid history of the industry’s funding of “research,” a major part of the mission of this new foundation, is replete with exactly this sort of blithe reassurance, as Yach himself pointed out in an earlier time.

    ‘In reality, nothing has changed. The “research” really isn’t the point anyway. The mere fact of having landed Yach is a major public relations coup for PMI that will be used to do more of what the industry always does: create doubt, contribute further to existing disputes within the global tobacco control movement, shore up its own competitive position, and go on pushing its cigarettes as long as it possibly can…’

    The full story is at: http://blogs.bmj.com/tc/2017/09/19/a-frank-statement-for-the-21st-century/.

  • CORESTA deadlines near

    CORESTA deadlines near

    The CORESTA Secretariat says that the deadlines for online registration for two Joint Study Group Meetings are ‘fast approaching’.

    The Smoke Science and Product Technology (SSPT2017) meeting is due to be held at Kitzbühel, Austria, on October 8-12.

    The SSPT2017 website is at www.sspt2017.org, where the online registration deadline is September 27.

    And the Agronomy & Leaf Integrity and Phytopathology & Genetics meeting (AP2017) is scheduled to be held at Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil, on October 22-26.

    The AP2017 website is at www.corestabrazil.com, where the online registration deadline is October 8.