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medpundit |
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Monday, November 04, 2002First, nicotine gum relies on buccal absorption of nicotine and the labeling of Nicorette instructs the user to chew until there is a peppery taste or slight tingling and then ""'park' the gum between the cheek and gum, and leave it there." Perhaps the gum is not releasing nicotine while it is parked, but it is in close contact with tissue. Second, nicotine lozenges and "minitabs" (sublingual) are sold in the UK. Thirdly and most important, my understanding was that nicotine itself is not carcinogenic. I did a little Web checking and found the following sentence at [this link]: "Nicotine and cotinine are not cancer-causing agents, however." The URL is for a press release from the University of Minnesota Cancer Center. Researchers at that center and I believe others have found that metabolites of nicotine can be carcinogenic. This certainly complicates things. However, the metabolism is in the liver and presumably would not have local effects in the mouth. It’s true that nicotine gum releases nicotine in the mouth, too, but it only releases it when chewed. It’s also fairly bad tasting and causes an unpleasant tingling in the mouth, so people aren’t likely to chew it again and again as a substitute for smoking like they would normal chewing gum, or as they would for lozenges. Nicotine doesn’t have to be processed by the liver to cause cancer, not withstanding the claims of the Unviersity of Minnesota. There’s a significant increase in oral cancer rates among people who chew tobacco, for example. Finally, just because something is available in the UK doesn’t make it inherently good. They’re very loose and free with a lot of unregulated herbal substances, for example. Not to mention their attitude toward caesarean sections. posted by Sydney on 11/04/2002 08:17:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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