HEADLINES

• Smokers urged to try smokeless nicotine cigarettes
• Counselling may not help pregnant smokers kick habit
• Menthol’s soothing effects may lead to addiction and illness in young smokers
• Gender differences in smoking cessation among first episode psychosis patients
• Stop smoking team wins an award

• Smokers urged to try smokeless nicotine cigarettes

  The government's "nudge unit" wants to encourage the use of smokeless nicotine cigarettes, banned in many countries around the world, in an attempt to reduce the numbers killed in the UK by smoking diseases each year.

  The Cabinet Office's behavioural insight team – better known as the nudge unit – wants to adopt the new technology because policy officials believe the rigid "quit or die" approach to smoking advice no longer works. Rather, they want nicotine addiction to be managed to help smokers who otherwise won't quit – an approach the unit believes could prevent millions of smoking deaths.

  The unit wants to explore and encourage new products that deliver nicotine to people's lungs but without the harmful toxins and carcinogens in tobacco smoke that kill.

  Experts have advised the UK government that the nicotine contained in some new, smokefree cigarettes is no more harmful than caffeine in coffee. A Cabinet Office source said: "A lot of countries are moving to ban this stuff; we think that's a mistake."

  John Britton, professor of epidemiology at the University of Nottingham, told the Guardian that on top of the current smokeless range – which includes electronic or "e-cigarettes" that simulate smoking by producing an inhaled mist – there are three or four devices in different stages of development. But he said some companies have been reluctant to develop this technology because they had expected it to be as tightly controlled as pharmaceutical drugs.

  Britton said: "If a manufacturer makes a health claim for anything then it becomes a drug, and drugs have to be regulated with tight controls. The current nicotine replacements are sold as drugs; however, e-cigarettes contain nicotine but get around this by making no health claim and so can be sold freely, but with little or no information on safety or standards. What we're asking for is a regulation change to bring all nicotine products into a light-touch regime that will guarantee reasonable purity and safety standards but make them as available as cigarettes in a shop."

  The Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is looking into approving these devices for use. If it finds in their favour, the government is likely to push for them to be placed prominently in shops alongside tobacco cigarettes, where they would be sold at a cheaper rate.

  Source: The Guardian, 14 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/ppw210

• Counselling may not help pregnant smokers kick habit

  Counselling alone does not seem to help pregnant women quit smoking, according to a review of previous studies that concludes more research on the use of nicotine replacement and other therapies during pregnancy may be needed.

  Published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the analysis included eight clinical trials of nearly 3,300 pregnant women. Researchers looked at whether counselling helped pregnant women quit smoking after six months.

  In the study with the highest success rate, for instance, just 24 percent of women who got counselling were able to quit, compared to twenty-one percent who didn't get counselling.

  Dr. Kristian Filion said, "We were a little surprised by the small number of women that remained abstinent and by the small effect of counselling."

  Filion doesn't recommend abandoning counselling as an intervention, but he does see a need to study more effective approaches.

  "Evidence regarding the safety and effectiveness of nicotine replacement therapies in pregnant women is limited," he said. "More research in this area is needed so that we can better understand the risk-benefit ratio of nicotine replacement therapies in pregnant women."

  Source: Reuters News, 13 September 2011
  Link: http://reut.rs/nNyADG

• Menthol’s soothing effects may lead to addiction and illness in young smokers

  A research team from Yale and the University of Connecticut has found that the cooling effect of menthol may cause people to smoke more and become addicted to cigarettes because it reduces the protective respiratory response to irritants in cigarette smoke. The biggest danger, they argue, is to young smokers, because they disproportionately prefer menthol cigarettes and are therefore likely to become addicted more quickly.

  Sven-Eric Jordt, associate professor of pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine said, "By suppressing the sensation of irritation, menthol may make smoke inhalation easier to tolerate, and therefore promote nicotine addiction and smoking-related illness. This is a particular hazard for young people just beginning to smoke.

  He added, "Studies indicate that most young people smoke menthol cigarettes. So they are being exposed to higher levels of nicotine and other toxic substances at a young age, which may lead to rapid addiction and, ultimately, the development of smoking-related disease."

  The study appears online in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).

  Source: insciences, 12 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/rl8dNz

• Gender differences in smoking cessation among first episode psychosis patients

  Researchers have found that gender is significantly associated with smoking cessation rates in first episode psychosis (FEP) patients, with women significantly less likely to quit the habit than men.

  "Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are associated worldwide with higher rates of current and ever smoking than those observed in the general population or in patients with other severe mental illnesses," observed Ana González-Pinto (University of the Basque Country, Vitoria, Spain) and colleagues.

  The researchers studied 112 FEP patients (48% women), aged 15-65 years, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or other associated condition. Of these, 79% of men and 84% of women were current smokers at baseline.

  Overall, women were significantly less likely to quit smoking than men, and those who used typical antipsychotics were less likely to quit the habit than those who did not.

  González-Pinto and team conclude in the journal Psychiatry Research: "Women were less prone to quit smoking than men during long-term follow-up after the development of psychosis. If our results are replicated by other studies this would indicate sex differences for the treatment of nicotine dependence in psychotic patients. Treatment for psychotic women who want to quit smoking should probably be more supportive and intensive than that for men."

  Source: MedWire News, 13 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/pepndf

• Stop smoking team wins an award

  Award-winning workers who help South Tynesiders quit smoking have scooped another accolade.

  The specialist Stop Smoking Team employed by South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust works across the borough, Gateshead and Sunderland, and has been recognised in the No Smoking Day 2011 Organiser of the Year awards.

  The team was named runner-up in the Best Workplace Activity category, for an event held in the restaurant at Sunderland Royal Hospital on No Smoking Day, which took place in March.

  Team leader Maria Williams said: “There was a lot of positive feedback on the day, with staff, patients and visitors saying they found the advisors very knowledgeable and helpful, and they appreciated the fact that they could book an appointment to see one of our advisors with a view to quitting.”

  The No Smoking Day Organiser of the Year awards honour those who help make the annual event a success.

  Source: Sheilds Gazzette, 15 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/pE5xgQ