Quitting cigarettes can be excruciating, but scientists at the Nicotine Research Program--a joint project of the School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center--are investigating several methods of easing the process.
Located in Durham since 1989, the program focuses on two main goals--developing new techniques to help people quit smoking through human clinical trials and finding the biological mechanisms of nicotine addiction from brain imaging.
"We search for the role of each component in addiction... and look for how to best design treatment programs," said Jed Rose, director of the Nicotine Research Program.
Rose's most significant recent research has been testing the effect of low-nicotine cigarettes on quitting. "Light" cigarettes on the market today, Rose explained, are not low-nicotine, but merely contain holes in the filter that mix inhaled smoke with air. Smokers adjust by taking deeper puffs and smoking more cigarettes.
Rose's study using cigarettes with actual low-nicotine tobacco, called de-nics, found that the amount of smoke inhaled satisfied many smokers, even with extremely low levels of nicotine.
A clinical trial with the de-nics found that smokers who used the low-nicotine cigarettes reduced their smoke intake by about 40 percent, compared to 15 percent of those who received nicotine through intravenous infusions alone, suggesting that the de-nics may be effective in helping smokers quit.
"The hope is that desire will decrease until quitting is possible," Rose said.
Other research in the program includes using the drug mecamylamine in conjunction with the nicotine patch, which has been especially effective for women, an inhaler with citric acid that simulates the feeling of inhaling smoke and isolated nicotine intravenous infusions to help people quit smoking.
Past research in the program has contributed to many successful smoking cessation products, such as the nicotine patch and oral nicotinic solutions.
Much of the research suggests cigarette addiction may be far more complicated than once thought. "Nicotine is a very tenacious addiction," Rose said, but the act of smoke inhalation and the habit of lighting up may be as important to addiction as nicotine levels in the blood.
"[Nicotine] is clearly a drug people become very dependent on, probably to the point of becoming addicted," said Jim Lane, associate research professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
Lane stressed the crucial next step for nicotine research is an understanding of the psychological component of addiction--what causes the craving for a cigarette.
"An addiction is hard to measure," Lane said. "It's not a pain, not sadness, not anything you can put your finger on.... What is the feeling of desire? No one has paid much attention to it."
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