Stop Smoking Now Aids

Oral Nicotine May Help Smokers Quit

Researchers are developing what they hope will be an entirely new way for cigarette smokers to kick their tobacco habit — an oral nicotine solution that can be consumed with a wide range of popular beverages.

“The nicotine is metabolized fairly rapidly, providing a quicker nicotine boost than is provided by a nicotine patch,” said Dr. Eric C. Westman of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. “And unlike nicotine gum, which comes in regular, mint and orange flavors, the oral solution can be flavored in almost any way the smoker chooses to flavor it.”

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the US — directly linked to 435,000 deaths each year.

A preliminary 3-month study conducted by Westman and his colleagues tested the ability of the oral solution to help 25 smokers abstain from smoking. After deciding upon a personal quitting date, the participants were given vials of the solution to self-administer throughout the day — whenever they felt the urge to smoke.

To each drink consumed the quitters added between 2.5 and 10 milligrams (mg) of the solution. The researchers pointed out that 3 mg of the nicotine solution was equivalent to the amount of nicotine typically inhaled from a single cigarette.

Westman’s team noted that, in addition to plain water, the oral solution can be added to both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, including coffee, tea, soda, beer and lemonade.

The investigators found that with minimal behavioral counseling and few side effects, the participants were able to abstain from smoking at the same levels typically achieved by smokers who use currently available cessation tools such as nicotine patches, nicotine gums, lozenges, and nicotine nasal sprays. Only one study participant dropped out of the study.

“The breakthrough is we have found a way to develop the oral nicotine so that it is tasteless, and can be used to relieve craving,” Westman told Reuters Health. “The prevailing wisdom was that this couldn’t be done — that the nicotine would be too intolerable and would taste bad and you couldn’t get sufficient levels to curb craving. But with this solution, a smoker can control the taste of the nicotine delivery system — and that is not possible with any other nicotine therapy that we have yet.”

Westman suggested that the oral solution also appears to be more convenient to use, working more quickly and with less irritation to the nose and throat than alternative cessation methods. He cautioned, however, that the oral nicotine solution has not yet received Food and Drug Administration approval — a process taking at least 3 to 5 years — and is not yet ready for consumer use.