Tag : Nicotine

Pennsylvania (US): According to Penn State College of Medicine and Harvard Medical School researchers, reducing the quantity of nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels may help smokers with mood or anxiety issues quit without harming their mental health. The findings were released in the journal PLOS ONE. They claimed that lowering the amount of nicotine in cigarettes could minimise addiction, reduce exposure to toxins, and improve smokers' chances of quitting. In the United States, tobacco use continues to be the biggest preventable cause of early death and disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the government of New Zealand recently made plans to reduce the quantity of nicotine in cigarettes to levels that are not highly addictive. Prior studies suggest that lowering nicotine levels could aid smokers in quitting, but there is little proof that these regulations would be harmful to those who already suffer from affective disorders like depression and anxiety disorders, which affect an estimated 38 per cent of smokers in the United States. Professor of psychiatry and behavioural health Jonathan Foulds asserts that smokers with mental health issues are more likely to have severe nicotine withdrawal symptoms and have less success quitting. He added that there is concern that reducing the amount of nicotine to extremely low levels can exacerbate the psychiatric symptoms of smokers who have mental health disorders, encourage greater smoking, and expose them to more toxicants (hazardous substances). The study included 188 smokers who had no intentions of quitting smoking and had a history of, or were currently experiencing a mood or anxiety condition. Volunteers were divided into two groups at random and given either ...