This book examines why individuals smoke and looks at the complex interaction between the toxicology of smoking and genetically based susceptibility to smoking-related disease.
This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.
The fact that tobacco ingestion can affect how people feel and think has been known for millennia, placing the plant among those used spiritually, honori?cally, and habitually (Corti 1931; Wilbert 1987). However, the conclusion that nicotine - counted for many of these psychopharmacological effects did not emerge until the nineteenth century (Langley 1905). This was elegantly described by Lewin in 1931 as follows: “The decisive factor in the effects of tobacco, desired or undesired, is nicotine. . . ”(Lewin 1998). The use of nicotine as a pharmacological probe to und- stand physiological functioning at the dawn of the twentieth century was a landmark in the birth of modern neuropharmacology (Limbird 2004; Halliwell 2007), and led the pioneering researcher John Langley to conclude that there must exist some “- ceptive substance” to explain the diverse actions of various substances, including nicotine, when applied to muscle tissue (Langley 1905). Research on tobacco and nicotine progressed throughout the twentieth century, but much of this was from a general pharmacological and toxicological rather than a psychopharmacological perspective (Larson et al. 1961). There was some attention to the effects related to addiction, such as euphoria (Johnston 1941), tolerance (Lewin 1931), and withdrawal (Finnegan et al. 1945), but outside of research supported by the tobacco industry, addiction and psychopharmacology were not major foci for research (Slade et al. 1995; Hurt and Robertson 1998; Henning?eld et al. 2006; Henning?eld and Hartel 1999; Larson et al. 1961).
This booklet for schools, medical personnel, and parents contains highlights from the 2012 Surgeon General's report on tobacco use among youth and teens (ages 12 through 17) and young adults (ages 18 through 25). The report details the causes and the consequences of tobacco use among youth and young adults by focusing on the social, environmental, advertising, and marketing influences that encourage youth and young adults to initiate and sustain tobacco use. This is the first time tobacco data on young adults as a discrete population have been explored in detail. The report also highlights successful strategies to prevent young people from using tobacco.
Tobacco is ranked as one of the major public health disasters of modern times. This book pulls together the science of tobacco-related diseases with the policy of tobacco control to offer a comprehensive preventive medicine/public health approach.
The health and economic costs of tobacco use in military and veteran populations are high. In 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) make recommendations on how to reduce tobacco initiation and encourage cessation in both military and veteran populations. In its 2009 report, Combating Tobacco in Military and Veteran Populations, the authoring committee concludes that to prevent tobacco initiation and encourage cessation, both DoD and VA should implement comprehensive tobacco-control programs.
The primary purpose of this book and its companion volume The Behavioral Genetics of Nicotine and Tobacco is to explore the ways in which recent studies on nicotine and its role in tobacco addiction have opened our eyes to the psychopharmacological properties of this unique and fascinating drug. While The Behavioral Genetics of Nicotine and Tobacco considers the molecular and genetic factors which influence behavioral responses to nicotine and how these may impact on the role of nicotine in tobacco dependence, the present book focuses on the complex neural and psychological mechanisms that mediate nicotine dependence in experimental animal models and their relationship to tobacco addiction in humans. These volumes will provide readers a contemporary overview of current research on nicotine psychopharmacology and its role in tobacco dependence from leaders in this field of researchand will hopefully prove valuable to those who are developing their own research programmes in this important topic.
Despite persistent warnings from the medical profession about the health risks involved in cigarette smoking, millions of people continue to smoke cigarettes. With contributions from renowned experts, this ground-breaking work defines and explains nicotine addiction as a primary problem or disease, instead of as a habit or risk factor for other diseases. A comprehensive, clinical text on tobacco dependence, this book provides clinicians with essential information on how to diagnose and treat nicotine addicted patients. It also offers the medical, epidemiological and behavioral science backgrounds necessary for understanding the process and dynamics of tobacco dependence. Following the traditional format of medical texts, the book first covers etiology, pathogenesis and complications, then diagnosis and treatment, and finally public health and prevention. Part One presents an overview of the biological, psychological and social factors that contribute to nicotine dependence including such topics as a description of nicotine delivery systems, psychopharmacology, economics, natural history and epidemiology, mortality, morbidity, and environmental tobacco smoke exposure. The second part offers practical guidelines and tools for treating nicotine dependence and describes a stepped-care treatment model with brief interventions that can be easily integrated into routine medical practice. This section also covers the role of psychopharmacologic and formal treatment programs, the treatment of smokeless tobacco addiction, and treating nicotine dependence in pregnant women and in people with medical illnesses, other chemical dependencies, or psychiatric disorders. The last section focuses on worksite and community intervention programs and summarizes the research on smoking patterns and history in women, Blacks, Hispanics, youth, and older adults, and shows how intervention and prevention programs could be made more effective in these groups. Written by the nation's leading tobacco control researchers and clinicians, this important work contains new and critical information not previously available.
Papers from the symposium: The Safety and Toxicity of Nicotine, held in Braselton, Georgia, on December 6, 1996. Examines the potential risks of nicotine as a therapeutic medication for diseases such as: Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Tourette syndrome, sleep apnea, attention deficit disorder, and more.
This monograph is derived from papers presented at a conference on smoking behavior convened at the University of California at Los Angeles, June 24 and 25, 1977. Ms. Toby-Ann Cronin played a critical role in the coordination of the conference and in the development of this publication with UCLA.