Effects of nicotine chewing gum on cigarette smoking and subjective and physiologic effects

Our study was conducted to assess the effects of multiple doses of nicotine chewing gum on a variety of measures of cigarette smoking, affect, and physiologic response. Cigarette smokers resided on a research unit for the duration of the study, during which time their smoking behavior was measured during nine 12-hour test sessions. At the start of each session and every 2 hours thereafter, subjects received oral doses of nicotine (2 or 4 mg) or placebo in the form of a chewing gum (nicotine polacrilex). Each dose of active drug and placebo was given for three sessions in a randomized block sequence. Total number of puffs per day was significantly decreased at both the 2 and 4 mg doses when compared with placebo, and the total number of cigarettes smoked per day was significantly decreased at the 4 mg dose. There were dose-related changes in certain subjective effects: Self-reported ratings of dose strength were directly related to dose, desire to smoke tended to be inversely related to dose, and prominent measures of abuse liability did not change. The only cardiovascular measure that was significantly changed by nicotine dose was systolic blood pressure, which showed an attenuation of the diurnal pattern as the dose increased.