Tag: study

  • Flavor Bans Boost Combustible Sales

    Flavor Bans Boost Combustible Sales

    Image: DoraZett

    A new study has found that flavor bans boost sales of traditional combustible cigarettes. The study, E-Cigarette Flavor Restrictions’ Effects on Tobacco Product Sales, concluded that restrictions on the sale of flavored nicotine vaping products could lead to significant increases in traditional cigarette sales.

    Given that combustible cigarettes are widely recognized as more harmful than vaping, the study’s findings raise pressing questions about the public health implications of such policies, according to a release from the Canadian Vaping Association (CVA). The group “urges Canadian governments to review the study’s findings and ensure that vapor product regulations are in line with harm reduction and Canada’s Drugs and Substances Strategy.”

    Key highlights from the study include:

    Substitution to cigarettes: For every 1 fewer 0.7 mL pod sold due to flavor restrictions, there’s an increase of 15 additional cigarettes purchased.

    Rise in cigarette sales over time: While the short-term effects are less clear, the long-term correlation between vaping flavor policies and a surge in cigarette sales is robust. This surge occurs especially when such policies have been in place for a year or more.

    Young population at risk: The relation between vaping flavor restrictions and increased cigarette sales isn’t limited to a particular age group. Alarmingly, there’s also a surge in sales for cigarette brands popular among underage youth.

    The research firmly underscores the unintended consequences of restricting flavored product sales, according to the CVA. While the research indicated that these policies do achieve their goal of reducing flavored product use, they inadvertently boost the sales of traditional cigarettes across all age groups.

    Given the stark difference in health risks between cigarettes and vaping, the study contends that the overall health benefits of such policies may be minimal or even potentially harmful in the broader perspective.

  • Study: E-Cigs Help Pregnant Smokers Quit

    Study: E-Cigs Help Pregnant Smokers Quit

    Photo: seksanwangjaisuk | Adobe Stock

    New research reveals that e-cigarettes are as safe to use as nicotine patches for pregnant smokers trying to quit and may be a more effective tool.

    Quitting smoking is difficult. For smokers who become pregnant, not quitting smoking in pregnancy can increase the risk of outcomes including premature birth, miscarriage and the baby having a low birth weight, according to a story in The Guardian.

    “Many pregnant smokers find it difficult to quit with current stop smoking medications, including nicotine patches, and continue to smoke throughout pregnancy,” said Francesca Pesola, an author of the new study who is based at Queen Mary University in London.

    While e-cigarettes have been found to be more effective than nicotine patches in helping people quit, Pesola noted there has been little research into their effectiveness or safety among pregnant women despite an increase in use by expectant mothers.

    Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, Pesola and colleagues describe how they randomly assigned 569 pregnant smokers to use e-cigarettes and 571 to use nicotine patches—a form of nicotine-replacement therapy that can already be prescribed during pregnancy. The participants were, on average, 15.7 weeks pregnant and smoked 10 cigarettes a day.

    Only 40 percent of those given e-cigarettes and 23 percent of those given patches used their allocated product for at least four weeks. However, both uptake and duration of use during the study was higher among those given e-cigarettes.

    After excluding participants who self-reported not smoking but who used nicotine products other than those allocated to them—for example, those in the group given patches who used e-cigarettes—the team found those given e-cigarettes appeared to do better at quitting smoking.

  • Vapor less toxic according to Cultex study

    Cultex Laboratories—a leader in the research and development of cell-based exposure systems and cultivation technologies based in Hannover, Germany—has examined the cytotoxic effects of the vapor emitted by e-cigarettes. Using specially designed exposure models that made it possible to keep cells at an atmosphere that mimicked the real characteristics of a human lung, researchers conducting the in-vitro study exposed healthy human bronchial epithelial cells to e-cigarette vapor.

    The study compared e-cigarette vapor containing 0.0 percent and 2.4 percent nicotine with the smoke emitted by combustible cigarettes, and results indicated that the toxicological effects of e-cigarette vapor were 4.5 to 8 times lower than those of tobacco smoke. No differences regarding the cytotoxicology were found between nicotine-free vapor versus the vapor that contained nicotine. Cultex Laboratories will continue its e-cigarette research and plans to analyze the possible long-term effects of e-cigarette use. The full study can be found at www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/4/3915.

  • Study indicates more than one-fifth of adults smoke

    A new study titled “Global Statistics on Addictive Behaviours: 2014 Status Report,” which was led by Professor Linda Gowing, of the University of Adelaide in South Australia, estimates that 22.5 percent of adults aged 15 years and older throughout the world smoke tobacco products. The rate use tobacco product use stood at 32 percent for men and 7 percent for women.

    Study results showed that eastern Europe had the highest percentage of adults smoking tobacco, at 30.5 percent, followed closely by Oceania at 29.5 percent and Western Europe at 28.5 percent. The lowest rate—13 percent—was observed in Africa and the Caribbean as well as central and northern America. An estimated 11 percent of deaths in males and 6 percent of deaths in females each year are attributed to tobacco use, according to the study.

  • Study recommends raising tobacco purchase age

    A study presented to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on March 12 supports the theory that raising the tobacco purchase age to 21 from 18 will substantially reduce the number of 15- to 17-year-olds who start smoking and decrease the number of early deaths and low birth weights due to smoking.

    Conducted by an Institute of Medicine committee, the study—titled “Public health implications of raising the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products”—reviewed existing information about tobacco use initiation as well as developmental biology and psychology.

    Results of the study indicated that, if the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products were increased to 19, smoking prevalence would decrease by an estimated 3 percent by the time today’s teenage users become adults. Additionally, the study found that a 12 percent decrease would occur if the minimum age of legal access were raised to 21, and a decrease of 16 percent would take place should the minimum age be raised to 25.

    The committee that conducted the study was chaired by Richard Bonnie, a law professor at the University of Virginia, and researchers used the SimSmoke and CisNet cigarette smoking models to gather information. Researchers also concluded that increasing the minimum age of legal access to 21 would result in 45,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer, 249,000 fewer premature deaths, 438,000 fewer babies born with a low birth weight, 286,000 fewer pre-term births, and 4.2 million fewer years of life lost among those born between 2000 and 2019.

  • New study reveals vapor health concerns

    RTI International, a leading nonprofit U.S. research institute, has released a study exploring the potential public health concerns associated with vapor emitted from e-cigarettes. The organization’s research paper—titled “Exhaled electronic cigarette emissions: What’s your secondhand exposure?”—examines the toxins in e-cigarette vapors and the impact they could have on people exposed to secondhand “smoke.”

    Although the long-term impact of exposure to e-cigarette vapor is still unknown, the study—which was authored by Jonathan Thornburg, Ph.D., director of Exposure and Aerosol Technology at RTI—found that emissions from e-cigarettes contain enough nicotine and other chemicals to cause concern.

    Nonusers who are exposed to secondhand vapor are potentially breathing in aerosol particles similar in size to those found in diesel-engine smoke and smoke produced by traditional cigarettes. Because e-cigarettes lack regulation, the type and amount of chemicals and potential toxins they may contain could vary greatly depending on the device being used.

    RTI is particularly concerned with the lack of regulation regarding e-cigarettes and the surge in marketing and sales that has occurred as a result. The e-cigarette category experienced annual sales that doubled yearly to $1 billion in 2013, according to RTI.

  • Sticky story: 3rd-hand smoke gives guests gooey fingers

    Anyone who has ever walked into a “non-smoking” hotel room and caught the distinct odor of cigarette smoke will not be surprised by the findings of a new study: When a hotel allows smoking in any of its rooms, the smoke gets into all of its rooms, the study suggests, according to a story in USA Today.

    Nicotine residues and other chemical traces “don’t stay in the smoking rooms,” says Georg Matt, a psychologist from San Diego State University who led the study, published Monday in the journal Tobacco Control. “They end up in the hallways and in other rooms, including non-smoking rooms.”

    The study found smoke residue on surfaces and in the air of both smoking and non-smoking rooms in 30 California hotels where smoking was allowed. Levels were highest in the smoking rooms, but levels in non-smoking rooms were much higher than those found at 10 smoke-free hotels.

    Volunteers who stayed overnight in the smoking hotels also ended up with sticky nicotine residues on their fingers, whether they stayed in smoking rooms or not. Urine tests found additional evidence of nicotine exposure in those who stayed in smoking rooms, but not those who stayed in the non-smoking rooms.

  • Potential help for unborn in Vitamin C

    Vitamin C might help prevent lung problems in babies born to mothers who smoke during pregnancy, according to a small new study reported by HealthDay.

    Pregnant women are advised not to smoke because it can harm their babies’ lungs and lead to problems such as wheezing and asthma. But if a pregnant woman can’t quit smoking, taking vitamin C might help protect her baby’s lungs.

    “The study included 159 women who were less than 22 weeks pregnant and unable to quit smoking,” the story reported. “They were randomly assigned to take either one 500-milligram capsule of vitamin C or a placebo each day for the remainder of their pregnancy.

    “Forty-eight hours after birth, babies born to women who took vitamin C had significantly better lung function than those whose mothers took the placebo. During their first year, wheezing was reported in 21 percent of infants whose mothers took vitamin C and in 40 percent of infants whose mothers took the placebo. The rate among infants born to non-smokers was 27 percent.”

    The preliminary study, which showed an association between vitamin C use and better lung function in infants but did not prove a cause-and-effect link, was presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting in Washington, DC.

    “Vitamin C is a simple, safe and inexpensive treatment that may decrease the impact of smoking during pregnancy on childhood respiratory health,” said lead author Dr. Cynthia McEvoy, an associate professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University Children’s Hospital.

    Meanwhile, study co-author, Dr. Eliot Spindel, a senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University, said that getting women to quit smoking during pregnancy had to be priority one. “… but this finding provides a way to potentially help the infants born of the roughly 50 percent of pregnant smokers who won’t or can’t quit smoking no matter what is tried,” he added.

  • UK campaigners condemn ‘sexist’ study on plain packaging

    Campaigners in the U.K. opposed to plain packaging of tobacco have described as “sexist” a study that says young female smokers get less satisfaction and less enjoyment from smoking cigarettes that come in plain, standardized packs.

    Hands Off Our Packs campaigner Angela Harbutt, a smoker, said, “The idea that plain packaging will have a greater impact on young women suggests that women are more easily influenced than men. This is not only an outdated view of women, it’s also incredibly sexist.

    “Women can think for themselves and if they enjoy smoking, as many do, the packaging will make no difference. It may influence which brand they buy, but not their habit.”

    According to researchers at Stirling University, women in the study said they were more embarrassed about smoking from plain packs and felt more negative about smoking from the plain packs, even though they were smoking their regular cigarettes.

    The same women allegedly reported smoking fewer cigarettes, stubbing out cigarettes early, smoking less around others and thinking more about quitting when using the plain packs.

    Harbutt added, “This is perfectly normal behavior but it doesn’t last.”

  • Prison doesn’t work, not for quitters

    A new study has found that behavioral intervention provided to U.S. prison inmates who smoked before going to jail substantially increased their ability to remain smoke-free after release, according to a report by MedPage Today.

    Most prisons in the U.S. are tobacco-free, with about 60 percent having total tobacco bans for staff and inmates, so most people entering the prison system are forced into abstinence.

    Despite this, about 97 percent of prisoners who were smokers on being sent to prison return to smoking almost immediately upon release.

    But three weeks after release, participants assigned to the behavioral intervention, known as Working Inside for Smoking Elimination (WISE), were 4.4 times more likely to refrain from smoking than those in a control group, according to Jennifer G. Clarke, MD, and colleagues at the Brown University Center for Primary Care and Prevention in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

    In addition, in a multivariate analysis that controlled for factors such as age, ethnicity, and duration of smoking, the WISE participants were 6.6 times more likely to be smoke-free at three weeks, the researchers reported in their study, which was published online by JAMA Internal Medicine on April 8, that “forced smoking abstinence [was] not enough for smoking cessation.”