Smoking Behavior and Exposure: Results of a Menthol Cigarette Cross-over Study

Our objective was to improve understanding of the differences in use behavior and exposure when smoking menthol and non-menthol cigarettes using a 2-part cross-over design.

Adult daily smokers were assigned randomly to alternate between 2 weeks of exclusively smoking a menthol test cigarette or a non-menthol test cigarette. Urine and saliva were collected for biomarker measurements; carbon monoxide (CO) was measured, and participants smoked test cigarettes through a CreSS® smoking topography device during 3 clinic visits. Participants turned in their cigarette butts from the test periods for determination of mouth level nicotine and completed subjective questionnaires related to the test cigarettes.

Regardless of cigarette preference, participants had higher salivary cotinine when smoking the non-menthol test cigarette, but there were no significant differences detected in urine 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol between the 2 test cigarettes. Mouth level nicotine, puff volume, and puff duration were significantly higher when smoking the menthol brand. Both menthol and non-menthol smokers reported significantly lower enjoyment and satisfaction scores for test cigarettes compared with their brand of choice.

Our results suggest that mentholation has an effect on measures of smoking behavior and that mouth level nicotine is a useful indicator of between-brand smoke exposure.