Less nicotine cigarettes can help some smokers rest

If cigarettes contain very few chemicals that keep people smoking, it can help smokers leave these deadly products.

This is the reasoning behind a new rule proposed on January 15 by the US Food and Drug Administration, which seeks to limit the amount of nicotine addictive to cigarettes. Reduced-nicine cigarettes would have less than 5 percent of the amount of nicotine usually found in regular cigarettes. The rule would also catch nicotine in some other products in which tobacco leaves burn.

The FDA rule is just one step towards reduced-nicotine cigarettes and other burnt tobacco products becoming standard. This process will probably take many years, depending on the advantages of future administrations and whether the tobacco industry challenges the rule in court, as there is a FDA rule that places graphic warning labels in their products. Prevention of smoking of the 2009 family and tobacco control gave the FDA the authority to seek graphic warning labels and reduce nicotine in tobacco products.

The idea of ​​a nicotine border has been around for decades. And the evidence that supports the drastically decrease in the amount of nicotine in burnt tobacco products have increased during that time. Controlled case trials of reduced-nicine cigarettes report that people who use them end up smoking less cigarettes a day. This is also the case for studies that focused on groups at a higher risk of smoking, including people who are at socio -economic disadvantage and people with mental health conditions.

By providing a path for people to reduce the number of cigarettes they drink daily, it is possible for smokers to eventually switch to less harmful nicotine distribution options, in nicotine replacement therapy, and on one day break the dependence of them all.

Here is science after reduced-nicotine cigarettes and how they can be a standing stone to leave, which about two-thirds of nearly 30 million adult smokers in the United States want to do.

Do we know about lowering nicotine cigarettes?

Nicotine, which is very dependent, is what keeps people smoking. It is other chemicals in cigarette smoke that can cause cancer. Cigarettes are designed to offer as much nicotine as a person can tolerate without being ill with chemicals, says Megan Piper, a research director at the University of Wisconsin for research and tobacco intervention in Madison. “Why? So that you can stay dependent. “

Regular cigarettes usually contain about 16 milligrams of nicotine per gram of tobacco. The FDA is proposing to reduce the amount to 0.7 milligrams in cigarettes and other burnt tobacco products.

There have been numerous clinical evidence of the occasion seeing how smokers do when using reduced-nicine cigarettes compared to regular cigarettes in terms of smoking and other factors. For example, in a trial that followed nearly 800 people for six weeks, researchers randomly appointed smokers – who did not plan to leave – to use regular cigarettes or one of other cigarettes with different lower nicotine.

In week six, people assigned to smoke cigarettes with 2.4 milligrams of nicotine or less smoke significantly less cigarettes a day than those regular regular cigarettes, say researchers in 2015. In general, he added up to about five or Six cigarettes a day, says study co -author Jennifer Tidey, a behavior scientist at the Brown University Public Health School in Providence, Ri

Participants in lower nicotine cigarettes also had lower results in nicotine addiction tests in week six. And for those participants who received an assessment of abstention, for whom they did not use any product containing nicotine for a day, the people who were assigned to lower nicotine cigarettes had significantly lower results for nicotine goods.

Thirty days after the six -week period of smoking of the trial, about 80 percent of the participants participated in a following call. Those who were assigned 1.3-milligrams and 0.4 milligrams were smoking less cigarettes a day than those who were ordered regularly.

Why is smoking so difficult to quit and how can they help reduce-nicoin cigarettes?

It’s not just nicotine buzz that keeps people using it. The symptoms that people experience if they trim nicotine “make it too difficult and unpleasant, painful, to rest,” says Piper. These withdrawal symptoms include the desperate, anxious, irritating and angry feeling and have difficulty sleeping. “People have trouble dealing with stress because their main coping response is made using nicotine,” Piper says.

People who don’t smoke “don’t really appreciate how difficult it is” to rest, Tidey says.

Here’s how reduced-nicotine cigarettes can help. While the amount of nicotine in these cigarettes is much less than smokers are learned, studies find that people do not try to compensate by smoking more. Nor do they experience more desires or more withdrawal symptoms, partly because behaviors that signal a person will continue nicotine. Smoking behaviors – “By removing the cigarette from the box, staring at it, placing it on your lips, smoking it, absorbing the smoke” – are paired with the distribution of nicotine for so long, Tidey says, ” You start to experience this mood only from making those behaviors. “

Those reinforcing behaviors of coverage for smaller buzzing that offer reduced-nicotine cigarettes. Meanwhile, taking in less nicotine begins to leave the chemical addiction. Research finding that the desires and symptoms of withdrawal do not increase even though the person is drinking less issues with the aim of eventually being able to abandon. “This notion of self-efficacy, I,” I actually have a control here, “says Piper,” is a critical part to be able to be successful. ” The ability to cut smoking through reduced-nicine cigarettes can help people see how they may be able to give up smoking completely, she says.

Smokers who discussed what it was like to use low nicotine cigarettes as part of a study echoed that feeling, the researchers reported Drug and alcohol addiction in 2021. The study participants settled in a hotel for five days, twice. For the first stay, they used regular cigarettes. For the second stay, which was nine days after the first, they had only access to 0.4 milligrams of nicotine. During the reduced-nicotin stay, the researchers interviewed participants for their experiences.

Some talked about the less dependent feeling of cigarettes and more motivated to leave their use. As one participant said, “I really finally feel like cigarettes are not controlling me.” Another said, “I honestly think I might be resting, smoking these for a few weeks.”

What else should people know about reduced nicotine cigarettes and trying to abandon?

The goal is to help people stop smoking, rather than continuing to use reduced-nicine cigarettes, which still have the chemicals that cause cancer. This may mean that people go through non -associated tobacco products containing nicotine, such as electronic cigarettes. There are also nicotine replacement therapy approved by FDA, including skin patches and gum, to help people rest.

The availability of reduced-nicotine cigarettes would give smokers another approach to remove their dependence on nicotine. Considering how difficult the removal can be, the more likely, the better. “Most people who left successfully have had to try many times,” Tidey says. “Really really difficult. Continue to try. ”