New research suggests that reducing the amount of nicotine in cigarettes can help smokers quit, UPI reported.
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh found that nicotine content is a significant determinant of cigarette use and dependence. Reduced nicotine content cigarettes reduced exposure to nicotine, nicotine dependence, and craving when participants were abstinent from cigarettes, Reuters Health reported.
"This is a very different approach, and this one might make smokers less dependent on cigarettes and better able to quit," Eric Donny, lead author of the study and a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, told Reuters Health.
For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from 840 people. The double-blind, parallel, randomized clinical trial had participants smoke for six weeks--either their usual brand or one of six investigational cigarettes--that varied in nicotine content from 15.8 mg/g tobacco (typical of commercial brands) to 0.4 mg/g.
When smoking levels were examined at six weeks, researchers found that an 85 to 97 percent reduction in nicotine content reduced cigarette consumptions by 23 percent, Reuters Health reported.
"The evidence is getting stronger that reducing nicotine reduces smoking and makes people less addicted to cigarettes and, in doing so, might make them more likely to quit," Donny told USA Today.
According to Donny, reducing nicotine content in cigarettes is more effective than consuming "light" cigarettes, which use the same tobacco--with the same nicotine content--as "full-flavor" smokes.
The difference between regular and "light" cigarettes is that "lights" manufacturers use a different filter, more porous paper, and/or punch tiny holes in the paper. And people, unwittingly most often, get around that by puffing extra hard or covering the holes with their fingers.
"And they can end up getting the same amount of nicotine," Donny said.
The findings are detailed in the New England Journal of Medicine.
