Nicotine gum: dose-related effects on cigarette smoking and subjective ratings

Abstract

The effects of nicotine-containing chewing gum on cigarette smoking and subjective and physiological response were evaluated in eight normal volunteers. Isolated subjects smoked their regular brand of cigarettes freely in a naturalistic laboratory environment while watching television or reading. Before 90-min smoking sessions subjects chewed two pieces of placebo or nicotine-containing gum (0, 2, 4, or 8 mg) under double-blind conditions. Each subject received each treatment four times in a mixed order across days. Analysis of the chewed gum for remaining nicotine revealed that the mean delivered nicotine doses were 0, 1.02, 2.39, and 5.20 mg nicotine. Nicotine preloading produced dose-related increases in plasma nicotine, while producing dose-related decreases in various measures of cigarette smoking including number of cigarettes smoked, number of puffs taken, expired air carbon monoxide level, and ratings of smoking satisfaction. Nicotine preloading produced dose-related increases in ratings of gum dose-strength, while producing decreases in ratings of gum dose acceptability and liking. Heart rate and blood pressure were not significantly affected by nicotine gum. Taken together, the present results confirm that responses to nicotine in the gum preparation are orderly and related to dose, and the results suggest that the efficacy of treating tobacco dependence with nicotine gum may be enhanced by increasing the administered dose.

Persistent use of nicotine replacement therapy: an analysis of actual purchase patterns in a population based sample

“…29 Compared to cigarette smoking, which delivers boli of nicotine to the brain within 10 seconds and achieves peak plasma concentrations after 5-10 minutes, 30 nicotine delivery via NRT is quite slow with peak plasma concentrations occurring after 20-30 minutes for gum 31 and 6-12 hours for various nicotine patches. 32 33 In any case, formal studies of abuse liability [34][35][36] have consistently shown that nicotine gum and patch have very low abuse liability. These forms of nicotine administration are simply not very reinforcing and, indeed, do not regularly maintain use even for as long as recommended by the instructions.…”

Cigarette Smoking and Nicotine Gum (0, 2 and 4 mg): Effects upon Four Visual Attention Tasks

“…These findings are similar to the objective data on cigarette consumption following nicotine gum. reported by Nemeth-Coslett et al [1987], where higherdose gum led to some reductions in smoking behaviour.…”

“…Pickworth et al [1986] reported EEG changes indicative of increased alertness with 4 mg nicotine gum, but not with 2 mg gum. Nemeth-Coslett et al [1987] reported an increase in plasma nicotine following 4 mg gum, while levels following 2 mg gum were only slightly (non-significantly) higher than under the non-deprived placebo con dition. One major difficulty with research in this area is that 2 mg gum provides only a low dose of nicotine.…”

The role of nicotine in tobacco use

“…Nicotine gum also fails to produce euphoria (Snyder et al 1989). In fact, Nemeth-Coslett et al (1987) reported that 4 mg nicotine gum produced lower "euphoria" scores than placebo. Warburton (1988) presented data on the pleasure-stimulation and pleasure-relaxation effects of nicotine and other substances.…”