Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in North America. Unfortunately, treating tobacco addiction is difficult. A majority of smokers who attempt to quit relapse, even when using smoking cessation aids. A better understanding of the factors that impact responses to smoking cessation aids may help with the development of more effective cessation strategies, which could help more people to quit. This could reduce the harms (eg. stroke, heart disease, cancer, death) of long-term smoking. The goal of this research is to examine how individual genetic and psychological differences influence laboratory measures of smoking relapse (ability to delay cigarette smoking and number of cigarettes smoked) following the use of two types of smoking cessation aids: nicotine replacement therapy and very low nicotine content cigarettes. Genetic differences will be measured with the nicotine metabolite ratio (NMR), which is an indicator of how quickly the body breaks down nicotine. Breaking down nicotine more quickly (higher NMR) is associated with heavier smoking and greater difficulty quitting. Psychological differences will be measured by giving participants different instructions about the nicotine content of smoking cessation aids. Previous research shows that being told that a product contains nicotine is effective in reducing cigarette craving, regardless of whether or not the product actually contains nicotine. This will be the first study to examine the combined impact of genetic and psychological differences on responses to smoking cessation aids. Results of this research could help show how biological and psychological factors impact the effectiveness of smoking cessation aids. This knowledge could help with development of new smoking cessation strategies that are more effective in helping people to quit.