Yahoo – AFP,
12 Jan 2015
Paris (AFP) - How quickly a smoker breaks down nicotine is a guide to which therapy is best for kicking the habit, according to research published Monday.
How quickly a smoker breaks down nicotine is a guide to which therapy is best for kicking the habit, according to research published Monday (AFP Photo/Eric Feferberg) |
Paris (AFP) - How quickly a smoker breaks down nicotine is a guide to which therapy is best for kicking the habit, according to research published Monday.
Most
smokers who try to give up tobacco fail within the first week, so matching them
to the best treatment is essential, its authors said.
Previous
research has found a link between tobacco craving and levels of an enzyme
called CYP2A6 which breaks down nicotine.
The faster
the nicotine is metabolised, the likelier it is that the smoker will want to
light up again soon, and the harder it will be to quit.
Scientists
in the United States and Canada used a biomarker -- the speed at which CYP2A6
does its job -- to see whether nicotine patches or a non-nicotine replacement
drug called hantix or Champix) were more effective.
Smokers who
broke down nicotine quickly -- most smokers, in fact -- were twice as likely to
quit if they used varenicline than if they used patches, they found.
They also
had a better chance of staying of tobacco six months later.
Slower
metabolisers found nicotine patches to be as effective as varenicline, but
without that drug's side effects.
The studies
covered 1,246 smokers who wanted to quit, divided roughly equally into fast and
slow metabolisers.
The smokers
were randomly assigned to an 11-week course that comprised either a nicotine
patch plus a dummy pill, varenicline plus a dummy patch or a dummy patch and a
dummy pill.
The study
did not cover electronic cigarettes, which some advocates say are a useful tool
for giving up smoking.
The results
should lead to a simple blood test for nicotine metabolism so that doctors can
better advise patients, the authors hope.
"As
many as 65 percent of smokers who try to quit relapse within the first
week," said Caryn Lerman, a professor of psychiatry at the University of
Pennsylvania, who co-led the study.
"Matching
a treatment based on the rate at which smokers metabolise nicotine could be a
viable clinical strategy to help individual smokers choose the cessation method
that will work best for them."
Around six
million deaths annually can be attributed to tobacco, and smoking inflicts
around $200 billion (169 billion euros) in health costs annually, the paper
said.
The study
appears in the journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
No comments:
Post a Comment