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  • New Technology for Nicotine Pouches May Improve Oral Health

    New Technology for Nicotine Pouches May Improve Oral Health

    A new study suggests damage to the gums and oral lining caused by products like nicotine pouches or snus may be reversed by switching to a new, gum-protective technology. A team of researchers from universities and dental clinics in Sweden, Poland, Indonesia, Moldova, and the UK—with support from the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) in Catania—published the results of their pilot study in Acta Odontologica Scandinavica.

    Twenty-three Swedish dentists, all regular users of snus or nicotine pouches, participated in the five-week observational study. The participants switched exclusively to using a new technology nicotine pouch featuring a plant-based inner barrier, designed to protect sensitive tissues in the mouth by reducing direct contact with the gums and the oral mucosa from the contents of the pouch. Self-reported oral health status and photographic documentation of their oral conditions were noted before and after the study.

    The prevalence of self-reported snus lesions decreased from 95.7% to 69.6%. The severity of these lesions also decreased by 52%, with 39% of moderate-to-severe lesions completely disappearing by the end of the study. Self-reported cases of gingivitis (gum inflammation) were eliminated, and gingival irritation decreased by 90%.

    “Not all nicotine pouches are created equal. This is a positive step forward for tobacco harm reduction,” said Prof. Riccardo Polosa, founder of CoEHAR. “This development marks real progress in tobacco harm reduction. By engineering products that minimize risk and help smokers quit, we achieve an unequivocal win for public health.”

    The findings support the idea that technological innovation can make nicotine products less harmful, especially for adults seeking alternatives to smoking.

  • Study: Risks and Reasons for Intravaginal Tobacco Use 

    Study: Risks and Reasons for Intravaginal Tobacco Use 

    In  2023, a paper published in BMJ Tobacco Control examined intravaginal tobacco use among women in The Gambia, a growing trend in Sub-Saharan African countries that received little scientific attention. A subsequent study of the topic was launched in 2024, to be completed by the end of 2025.  

    In collaboration with research partners in the United States and The Gambia, the study looks at what motivates women who use tobacco intravaginally. It also documents tobacco use behaviors and assesses the chemical composition (including nicotine content) and level of toxicity of the products. The study examines both the sociocultural motivations behind the practice and the chemical composition of the tobacco used.

    Preliminary findings reveal that women use intravaginal tobacco for various reasons, including treating vaginal yeast infection, enhancing sexual pleasure, improving pregnancy and labor outcomes, and treating various health conditions including hypertension, asthma, and infertility. Findings also show that the product is often marketed by local vendors as traditional medicine, but may contain dangerous additives, including baobab ash, caustic soda, cannabis, and shea butter, raising concerns about its potential toxicological effects.

    The study is funded by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use through the CDC Foundation, with a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

  • New Study Sounds Alarm on Amount of Nicotine in Vapes

    New Study Sounds Alarm on Amount of Nicotine in Vapes

    A new study conducted by the CDC Foundation and Truth Initiative shows that between February 2020 and June 2024, while the number of e-cigarette units sold each month rose by 34.7%, the total monthly nicotine content sold increased by 249.2%. 

    “Measurements that take into account both e-liquid volume and nicotine concentration paint a more realistic picture of the size and strength of e-cigarettes being sold in stores today,” said Fatma Romeh M. Ali, PhD, health economist and consultant with the CDC Foundation. “Measuring e-cigarette sales in milligrams of nicotine, rather than just counting products, is critical to understanding the public health impact.”

    Published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study says the increase is largely driven by disposable devices. The authors reason that because nicotine can be purchased cheaper, it is now more likely to end up with young users, and because there is more nicotine present, those users are likely to become addicted.

    “A disposable e-cigarette today contains significantly more nicotine than it did just a few years ago, posing greater addiction risks—especially for young users,” said Megan Diaz, PhD, research director at Truth Initiative. “These findings raise serious concerns about youth access and affordability because disposables are not only the most popular e-cigarette product among youth, but they’re also the cheapest way to obtain large amounts of nicotine and they come in appealing flavors.”

  • Researchers Find Pouches Shifting Nicotine Delivery Trend with Youth

    Researchers Find Pouches Shifting Nicotine Delivery Trend with Youth

    Researchers at USC’s Keck School of Medicine offered a press release titled “Use of nicotine pouches increases significantly among U.S. teens.” It begins by saying, “The use of nicotine pouches nearly doubled among U.S. high school students between 2023 and 2024,” with Dae-Hee Han, first author of the study, saying, “This growing public health issue needs more attention. Like flavored e-cigarettes when they first emerged, use of this new oral nicotine product is becoming more widespread, particularly among adolescents.”

    Randomly selected responses from one-third of the 10,000 high school students surveyed found that between 2023 and 2024, nicotine pouch use increased from 3.0% to 5.4% all-time, and from 1.3% to 2.6% in the last 30 days. Dual use of nicotine pouches and e-cigarettes also increased, going from 2.7% to 4.7% lifetime and 1.1% to 1.7% in the last 30 days.

    On the other hand, exclusive e-cigarette use declined from 25.7% to 22.0% lifetime, and from 12.3% to 10.1% in the last 30 days. And the use of non-tobacco nicotine products declined from 28.8% to 27.4% lifetime, and from 13.6% to 12.7% in the last 30 days.

    Researchers said the trends reflect a shift in nicotine delivery products rather than a change in the overall prevalence of non-tobacco nicotine use among the students.

  • German Study Finds Smokers Unmotivated to Quit

    German Study Finds Smokers Unmotivated to Quit

    A German Study on Tobacco Use (DEBRA) reported that around 30% of the population smoked cigarettes in 2024. The study focused on the habits and thoughts of nearly 1,200 adults who smoked daily and found that 51.2% of people who smoked were not motivated to stop smoking, 29.1% reported an intention to quit in the following year, and the remainder had some desire to quit but had not decided when to try.

    Lack of motivation was highest among people who 65 and older (64.4%) and lowest among those aged 19 to 34 years (38.9%). People with lower socioeconomic status who smoked had less motivation to quit than those with a higher socioeconomic status. In the sample of people who smoke, the barriers to quitting smoking included enjoyment of smoking (50.1%), difficulty in changing habits (41.4%), and lack of discipline (31.2%), with key differences among age groups. Only 27.3% of people who smoke perceived E-cigs/HTPs to have lower health risks relative to cigarettes, versus 84.7% of smoke-free product (SFP) users.

    “The best way to reduce the health risks of smoking is to quit smoking altogether. However, focusing solely on cessation does not acknowledge the real challenges that people who smoke (barriers to quitting) face when trying to quit,” the study concluded. “The survey results, specifically on the lack of motivation to quit, suggest that current tobacco control measures are not effectively motivating the majority of people who smoke in Germany to quit. This study demonstrated that half of the people who smoke surveyed are not motivated to quit, and only 5% plan to quit in the next month. Older segments of the study population (aged 50+) and those in lower-income brackets are even less motivated to quit, with smoking enjoyment being the biggest barrier to quitting, affecting more than 60% of people who smoke and do not want to quit.

    “Lack of motivation to quit smoking and barriers to quitting manifest in different ways, implying that differentiated approaches are required to help people who smoke successfully move away from smoking cigarettes. They should have access to accurate information on the role of combustion-generated toxicants as the primary cause of smoking-related diseases and the relative risks of SFPs compared with continuing to smoke. Sustainably reducing smoking prevalence in Germany will require an integrated strategy that complements the existing tobacco control and prevention measures with tools based on the principles of tobacco harm reduction.”

  • Still 10-20 Years From Knowing Vape’s Long-Term Health Effects

    Still 10-20 Years From Knowing Vape’s Long-Term Health Effects

    New Zealand researchers are working to find out the long-term health effects of vaping on the nation’s youth, who are nearly three times more likely to vape than teenagers in Australia, Canada, and the United States. And while preliminary research is causing concerns, they admit that concrete conclusions are still years away.

    Kelly Burrows, a researcher at Auckland University’s Bio Engineering Institute, began looking into the matter in 2019 when data suggested that cigarette use was declining but vape use was increasing drastically.

    “You know it took sort of 50 years to find out what the link between smoking and health effects really were,” she said. “I would say because vaping has not been around that long, comparatively, it’ll be at least another 10 years or 20 years before we see the long-term health effects.”

    During the past six years, the associate professor led multiple studies on the topic, focusing on the lungs and respiratory system.

    “Every time you vape, some of that will stay inside your lungs, so the e-liquids that are in vapes are sort of quite an oily substance,” Burrows said. “There’ll be a lining of this oil that will stay inside your lungs and actually one of the things that is designed to get rid of that is the process of inflammation. It’s when you have this inflammation occurring many times a day over many years, which is what leads to disease and tissue breakdown.”

    Burrows worked with engineering students to create a vaping robot, which collected vapor and froze it to be tested for chemicals and contaminants. That method found at least 30 different flavoring chemicals in each e-liquid, and Burrows said no one knows what the health and safety of those flavoring chemicals is. They also found some heavy metals in the aerosol—the substance that is inhaled and exhaled from a vaping device.

    “So normally the heating coil is made from a mixture of different metals and when that gets to really high temperatures, some of that comes off into the aerosol.”

    Another study from Burrows grew lung cells in a lab and exposed them to e-cigarette vapor, where some cells died and others broke apart or became more permeable, meaning chemicals could be more easily absorbed into the bloodstream.

  • Study: Menthol Cigarettes Linked to Higher Death Risk

    Study: Menthol Cigarettes Linked to Higher Death Risk

    A study recently published in Tobacco Control journal says menthol cigarette smokers had a higher risk of dying from any health cause compared to non-menthol cigarette smokers, in what the researchers claim is the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind.

    The report said, among former smokers, those who smoked menthol cigarettes showed:

    • 12% higher risk of death from all causes
    • 16% higher risk from cardiovascular diseases
    • 13% higher risk from coronary artery disease
    •  43% higher risk from other heart diseases

    “Mortality risks were shown to be especially high for individuals who quit smoking or smoked 40 or more menthol cigarettes per day,” the study said. “In addition, Black Americans who currently smoke menthol cigarettes face an 88% elevated risk of mortality from some heart diseases compared to those smoking non-menthol cigarettes.”

    While smoking rates have declined overall, the study said menthol cigarettes continue to rise in popularity with Blacks, women, and youth. “Menthol cigarettes represented 36% of the market among major manufacturers in 2022—the highest percentage since reporting began in 1963.” The popularity of menthol extends beyond cigarettes, with vape and flavored nicotine pouches also available.

    For the report, researchers followed nearly a million people from the Cancer Prevention Study II, tracking their health over six years. Of the participants, 73,486 smoked menthol cigarettes and 281,680 smoked non-menthol cigarettes. In that time, 4,071 menthol smokers and 20,738 non-menthol smokers died.

  • Study: Students Vaping in South Africa 

    Study: Students Vaping in South Africa 

    Researchers from the University of Cape Town found that 16.8% of high school students in South Africa used e-cigarettes. The study focused on schools in major cities and included 25,000 students from 52 schools in eight of South Africa’s nine provinces. 

    Students who vaped were asked further questions about the habit, with researchers estimating 61% of the teen vapers could be seriously addicted to nicotine. They also found that household income was not a factor in the use of vape products. When asked why they began vaping, more than half cited social influences and the desire to fit in.

    Published in The Conversation, the study also found that 5% on the students used cannabis and 2% smoked cigarettes.

  • Study: Young Dutch Vapers Unaware of Nicotine

    Study: Young Dutch Vapers Unaware of Nicotine

    A study in the Netherlands found that nearly 40 percent of young people who vape monthly do not know if their e-cigarette contains nicotine, according to a report from the Trimbos Institute. The findings, which expand on 2023 data, highlight a significant gap in awareness about the potentially addictive substance.

    “Young people seem less aware of the nicotine in vapes. This is a serious issue because once addicted, it is very difficult to quit,” said Esther Croes, a tobacco expert at the Trimbos Institute. She added that nicotine use can disrupt brain development in the long term.

    The report surveyed Dutch youth between the ages of 12 and 25 who vape at least once a month. While many said they continue vaping because they enjoy it, nearly 40 percent admitted they did not know whether their device contained nicotine. Additionally, more than two-thirds of respondents said they do not feel addicted.

    According to NL Times, data shows that young people feel more addicted to traditional cigarettes than to vapes. Among those who vape monthly, only 28 percent reported feeling addicted, compared to 50 percent of cigarette smokers. Despite these figures, addiction experts warn that nicotine dependence may develop gradually, and that young people may underestimate the difficulty of quitting.

    According to the study, many respondents cited flavors as their main reason for starting. Social influence and curiosity were also key factors.

  • Study: Vaping Does Not Help Smokers Quit

    Study: Vaping Does Not Help Smokers Quit

    E-cigarettes do not increase smoking cessation and are associated with reduced tobacco abstinence, says researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science and Moores Cancer Center at the University of California San Diego. The study, among smokers in the U.S. and published March 5 in JAMA, “refutes the common misperception among tobacco users and e-cigarette proponents” that e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking.

    “Most smokers think vaping will help you quit smoking,” John P. Pierce, Ph.D., a distinguished professor at the school and study’s co-author said. “However, this belief is not supported by science to date. While some researchers have suggested that smokers who switch to daily vaping will be more successful in quitting smoking, we studied quitting success among both daily and non-daily vapers and came up with a quite definitive answer.”

    The study analyzed data from 6,000 U.S. smokers from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study. There were 943 smokers who also vaped and by matching and comparing these to similar smokers who didn’t vape, they found smoking cessation was 4.1% lower among smokers who vaped daily and 5.3% lower among smokers who vaped occasionally.

    Researchers said that while e-cigarettes don’t have the same health consequences as smoking, they are not harmless.

    “The adverse health effects of cigarette smoking become obvious after people have smoked for 20 years,” said Pierce. “While vapes generally don’t contain the same harmful chemicals as cigarette smoke, they have other risks, and we just don’t yet know what the health consequences of vaping over 20 to 30 years will be.”

    This study was supported by the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program of the University of California Office of the President.