Addiction Medical and Health News Headlines

What's needed for personalized therapy in smoking cessation.

Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2008 Sep;84(3):309-10

Authors: Epstein RS

It has long been known that smoking cessation is one of the most cost-effective public health opportunities available. The fact that some 22% of Americans smoke,(1) despite overwhelming evidence of the consequences, reflects in part the addictive aspects of smoking and the generally modest effectiveness of various strategies for quitting. Although one of the US Department of Health and Human Services goals for the year 2010 is universal coverage of smoking-cessation agents,(2) only about a third of payers currently cover the cost of such agents.(3) A major disincentive is that the return on investment has been modeled to take at least 5 years to reach the break-even point,(4,5) given the cost of the individual agents, the high recidivism rates, the timeline for influencing outcomes, and the relative ineffectiveness of studied agents in broad or untargeted populations. The article by Patterson et al.(6) in this issue intriguingly suggests that there might be a way to use smokers' phenotypes to determine before treatment initiation which smokers will respond to which therapy. This approach could greatly improve the overall effectiveness of smoking-cessation agents and generate cost savings that might in turn have the effect of influencing more payers to cover these agents.

PMID: 18714320 [PubMed - in process]

Prevalence of and Associations with Waterpipe Tobacco Smoking among U.S. University Students.

Ann Behav Med. 2008 Aug 22;

Authors: Primack BA, Sidani J, Agarwal AA, Shadel WG, Donny EC, Eissenberg TE

BACKGROUND: Although waterpipe tobacco smoking seems to be increasing on U.S. university campuses, these data have come from convenience samples. PURPOSE: We aimed to determine the prevalence of and associations with waterpipe tobacco smoking among a random sample of students. METHODS: We surveyed a random sample of graduate and undergraduate students at a large, urban university. We used multivariate modeling to determine independent associations between belief-related predictors and waterpipe tobacco smoking. RESULTS: Of the 647 respondents, waterpipe smoking was reported in 40.5%, over the past year in 30.6%, and over the past 30 days in 9.5%. Over half of the sample (52.1%) perceived that tobacco smoking from a waterpipe was less addictive than cigarette smoking. In fully adjusted multivariate models, 1-year waterpipe smoking was associated with low perceived harm (OR = 2.54, 95% CI = 1.68, 3.83), low perceived addictiveness (OR = 4.64, 95% CI = 3.03, 7.10), perception of high social acceptability (OR = 20.00, 95% CI = 6.03, 66.30), and high perception of popularity (OR = 4.72, 95% CI = 2.85, 7.82). CONCLUSIONS: In this sample, lifetime waterpipe use was as common as lifetime cigarette use. Perception of harm, perception of addictiveness, social acceptability, and popularity were all strongly related to waterpipe smoking.

PMID: 18719977 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]