14 DAY TRIAL // A new study carried out by a team of researchers from Penn State University, the University of Miami, the University of California at San Francisco and the University of Minnesota Medical School, concluded that menthol cigarettes are harder to quit than regular ones, especially for some teenagers and African-Americans, who have the highest use.
The researchers also reviewed all the evidence from ten published studies that compared smoking quitting rates between menthol cigarettes smokers and regular cigarettes smokers, and noted that not all of them reported an effect of menthol on quitting.
Also, no studies to date have been especially designed to assess the relation between menthol and smoking cessation, but the effects of menthol on quitting were more elaborated in recent studies, in young smokers and in African-American and Latino smokers.
This last research, concluded that menthol cigarettes allow the inhalation of higher levels of carbon monoxide, cotinine and nicotine per cigarette smoked, than regular cigarettes.
Jonathan Foulds, PhD, professor, Public Health Sciences, Penn State College of Medicine, and an author of the report says that “menthol stimulates cold receptors, so it produces a cooling sensation.
“This effect may help smokers inhale more nicotine per cigarette and so become more addicted.
“In effect it helps the poison go down easier.
“The smoker who has reduced their cigarette consumption typically compensates by increasing inhalation per cigarette.
“Menthol in cigarettes makes the smoke less harsh, enabling these smokers to obtain a larger and more reinforcing nicotine hit.”
Recent research found that racial/ethnic minority menthol cigarettes smokers have a lower quit rate than akin smokers of regular cigarettes, especially among younger smokers.
The report suggests than one possible cause could be economic factors – smokers are affected by price increases so they smoke less cigarettes a day.
Foulds said that “this pattern of results is consistent with an effect that relies on menthol to facilitate increased nicotine intake from fewer cigarettes where economic pressures restrict the number of cigarettes smokers can afford to purchase.
Menthol is extracted from mint oils or produced synthetically and it activates cold-sensitive neurons in the nervous system.
According to available data, menthol cigarettes represent about 25% of the market but are preferred by certain subgroups of smokers, including nearly half of teenage smokers and 80 percent of African-American smokers.
The research team included Monica Webb Hooper, PhD, Department of Psychology and Biobehavioral Oncology, University of Miami; Mark J. Pletcher, MD, M.P.H., Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California at San Francisco; and Kolawole S. Okuyemi, MD, M.P.H., Program in Health Disparities Research, University of Minnesota Medical School, and their results were published in a special issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.