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Would Low-Nicotine Cigarettes Cut Smoking And Encourage Quitting? Cigarette smoking is bad for the health. Many chronic diseases including lung cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are caused by smoking. Smoking can not only raise the risk of getting coronary heart disease and stroke by 2 to 4 times but also increases the likelihood of developing lung cancer by 25 times for men and 25.7 times for women. Most people are aware of the health hazards that the smoking can cause and yet many smokers find it hard to quit. This is because tobacco (the main component of cigarette) contains a chemical called nicotine, which is an addictive substance. Some scientists have been pushing for lower levels of nicotine in tobacco as early as in 1990s hoping to help smokers quit and prevent new users from becoming lifelong smokers. And for years, researchers have been testing if changing nicotine levels in tobacco would actually make people lose interest in smoking though the results so far are inconclusive. On the other hand, the American health officials fear that cutting cigarettes’ nicotine content would drive smokers to more dangerous habits. In fact, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) indicated in March 2015 that regulating tobacco to contain less nicotine could actually cause people to smoke even more. Nevertheless, most health experts felt that it is too early to know what would happen with regulated nicotine levels in tobacco.
Perhaps, such reluctance may end with the findings of a large test of cigarettes with reduced nicotine. The study, which was published October 1, 2015 in ‘The New England Journal of Medicine’, found that an 85 percent to 97 percent reduction in nicotine produced a 23 percent reduction in the number of cigarettes smoked. Participants who spent 6 weeks smoking the cigarettes with the lowest nicotine content were twice as likely to report trying to quit smoking within 30 days after the end of the study. Experiment was done on 840 smokers who told the researchers they had no interest in quitting when they signed up. They were paid up to US$835 for their participation. Questionnaires were used to measure smoking dependence, nicotine withdrawal, depression and craving. All the volunteers were smoking at least 5 cigarettes a day. They were told to smoke their regular brand or experimental cigarettes (provided free of charge) with 1 of 6 different levels of nicotine. At the end of the 6-week test study, they were asked to abstain for at least 18 hours so their craving and withdrawal symptoms could be measured. Cigarettes typically have about 15.8 milligrams of nicotine per gram of tobacco. No significant change in smoking behavior was found when nicotine levels were reduced to as low as 5.2 mg. But when the nicotine levels dropped to 2.4 mg or lower, there was a modest decline in the number of cigarettes smoked. Smokers went from 21.3 cigarettes per week with 15.8 mg of nicotine to 16.5 cigarettes per week with 2.4 mg of nicotine. People on the low-nicotine cigarettes were also reported to be less craving and less dependence. 30 days after the end of the study, about 35 percent of the volunteers who had been smoking the low-nicotine cigarettes had tried to quit, compared to 17 percent of those consuming regular-strength cigarettes. The study, the largest ever done on reduced-nicotine cigarettes, was designed to provide the FDA a scientific basis to cut back on the addictive chemical in tobacco products. Other experts, however, doubted that the new findings will be sufficient to impose regulations. They argued that the study examined only for a duration of 6 weeks, which is rather short for people who wish to quit smoking. Perhaps, 6 months or a year is the real test of whether an intervention is effective or not. In any case, they stressed that cigarettes are not safe, whether they have lots of or a little bit of nicotine. The best way to protect one’s health is still to quit.
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