Will a smoker who is quitting be able to get an injection someday that will prevent him or her from going back to using cigarettes? And what could help stop the spread of tobacco use among teenagers worldwide?
Answers to these and other urgent questions about nicotine and tobacco will be considered this month at the sixth annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT).
The February 18-20 gathering of hundreds of scientists near the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C., is supported in part by a three-year grant from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. The society’s primary goal is promoting research on nicotine and tobacco and providing a forum for disseminating findings.
Tobacco-related diseases accounted for some 100 million deaths during the 20th century, and are predicted to kill another 900 million persons by the end of the 21st century, bringing the total death count to 1 billion. These statistical predictions, announced recently, underscore the need for research focused on understanding, preventing, and mitigating the effects of tobacco use. Presently some 1.3 billion persons use tobacco worldwide, with rates increasing rapidly in developing countries and among women and youth.
A one-day meeting on methodology associated with studying the outcome of tobacco-dependence treatment will precede the meeting Feb. 17. All meetings will be at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia.
The 500-member society includes researchers from more than 25 countries. Most of those scientists attending the February meeting will be presenting findings on numerous aspects of tobacco use. Many presentations will focus on tobacco use among adolescents and children, which is an area of concern for policymakers, scientists, and parents alike. Findings to be presented will include these:
- A study of rats exposed to nicotine offers promising evidence that someday a vaccine may be able to help prevent dependence on tobacco. Researchers at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and at NABI of Rockville, Maryland, have found that rats who were immunized against nicotine and then were repeatedly infused with nicotine developed less dependence on nicotine than rats who were not immunized. The vaccine attenuates some actions of nicotine in rats, and at least for a short period of time makes rats immune to the effects of nicotine. The results raise the possibility that a nicotine immunization might help prevent people from developing a dependence on, or addiction to, nicotine, and also might help prevent relapse in former tobacco users.
- Dependence on tobacco can develop within as short a time as days to weeks of a young person’s initial use of tobacco. A study of the development of symptoms of nicotine dependence among Massachusetts adolescents has established that even before an adolescent begins using tobacco once a day, symptoms of dependence are likely to begin. However, the tendency to develop a dependence on nicotine varies considerably among adolescents, who can be classified into one of three groups-those with rapid onset of tobacco dependence, those with slower onset, and those who are resistant to dependence. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School based their findings on a study of nearly 700 adolescents.
- Depression and delinquency are associated with the progress of tobacco dependence in adolescents. Scientists at Brown University and Miriam Hospital in Rhode Island have concluded that these factors are predictors of the development of an addiction to nicotine among young persons. Their study of more than 14,500 adolescents indicated that those adolescents who progressed toward regular tobacco use and the resulting dependence on tobacco had more symptoms of depression and delinquency than did their non-tobacco-using counterparts.
NOTE: The only published announcement of the above-mentioned predictions of tobacco-related deaths is in the current issue of the SRNT Newsletter at: http://www.srnt.org/publications/newsltr/demoindex.htm . Information from the newsletter article about the predictions of tobacco-related deaths may be quoted with attribution.