"When wearing a nicotine patch, the body and brain already have a certain level of nicotine, so the cigarette's delivery of nicotine is not as noticeable," said Rose. The steady influx attenuates or reduces the effect of the cigarette's dose of nicotine, because the brain is already receiving nicotine via the patch. In contrast, said Rose, smokers who wear the patch receive a steady level of nicotine. "What reinforces the addiction to smoking is the connection between inhaling smoke and getting an immediate nicotine effect as it is absorbed by the lungs and brain." Rose, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation and senior author of the study. "Wearing the nicotine patch partially disconnects the reward of smoking," said Jed E. The patch also reduced the severity of withdrawal symptoms, the study showed. In fact, many smokers who wore the patch before their target quit date actually smoked less than usual during that two week period, had fewer cravings, or more easily switched to a low tar/low nicotine brand, the study found. Neither of these hypotheses was confirmed in the Duke study, nor in earlier studies of smoking cessation. Previously, it was believed that wearing the patch while smoking was either too toxic or could fuel the addiction by adding excess nicotine. The Duke researchers said that wearing a nicotine patch before a smoker attempts to quit provides a steady, consistent source of nicotine that interrupts the rapid reward of inhaling nicotine via cigarettes.
1, 2006, issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research. Results of the study, funded by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), are published in the Feb. Moreover, said the researchers, such confirmation would lead them to advocate a change in clinical practice in smoking cessation programs, to include use of the patches before cessation. If these findings are confirmed by a larger study currently underway, the researchers said the Food and Drug Administration may need to re-evaluate its current warning against smoking while wearing the nicotine patch. The same pattern appeared to continue for six months, although many of the study participants were no longer reachable to verify this trend, said the researchers. Only 23 percent of smokers who wore a placebo patch two weeks prior to quitting had stopped after four weeks.
In a study of 96 smokers attempting to quit, 50 percent of those who wore the patch two weeks prior to quitting had stopped at four weeks. Currently, the patch's label warns against smoking while wearing the patch. Smokers trying to quit the habit may double their success rate by wearing a nicotine patch two weeks before their actual quit date, according to a Duke University Medical Center study.
0 kommentar(er)
