Rationale: Neurobiological models of addiction suggest that abnormalities of brain reward circuitry distort salience attribution and inhibitory control processes, which in turn contribute to high relapse rates. Objectives: To determine whether impairments of salience attribution and inhibitory control predict relapse in a pharmacologically unaided attempt at smoking cessation. Methods: 141 smok...

BACKGROUND Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a recognised air pollutant. Its harmful effects have been found to be implicated in health disorders, including unfavourable pregnancy outcomes. The discrepancy between self-reported environmental tobacco smoke exposure and cotinine levels in pregnant non-smokers in France was examined. METHOD Plasma cotinine was determined by a CPG-SM method on...

BACKGROUND Studies of the effects of tobacco smoke often rely on reported exposure to cigarette smoke, a measure that is subject to bias. We describe here the relationship between parental smoking exposure as assessed by urinary cotinine excretion and lung function in children with asthma. METHODS We studied 90 children 4-14 years of age, who reported a confirmed diagnosis or symptoms of asth...

A cotinine in freeze-dried urine reference material (RM 8444) was prepared at three concentrations: (1) a "blank" level typical of nonsmokers with no exposure to cigarette smoke, (2) a "low" level corresponding to nonsmokers with passive exposure to side-stream smoke, and (3) a "high" level typical of smokers. Low- and high-level materials were prepared gravimetrically from pooled urine by the ...

Nicotine is the primary psychoactive component in tobacco. It is taken into the body by tobacco smoking, and mainly metabolized to cotinine in the hepatic cytochrme P450 (CYP) 2A6. The objective of this study was to develop a sensitive method for the determination of nicotine metabolism to cotinine using HPLC. The internal standard, trans-4'-carboxycotinine methyl ester was synthesized with a s...

The performance of a colorimetric assay for nicotine metabolites to validate self-reported smoking classification (nonsmoker, ex-smoker, and smoker) was assessed in a group of diabetic patients (n = 201). Comparison of the results with those of cotinine immunoassay (ELISA), by comparing respective areas under receiver operating characteristic curves, established the superiority of the cotinine ...

The increasing evidence of the ill-health effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has prompted the search for accurate measures of exposure to ETS. The present study examined whether it was possible to enhance the ability of questionnaire-derived assessments of ETS exposure, to predict salivary cotinine. Salivary samples were obtained from 258 nonsmoking bank employees, who simultaneously ...

We present the synthesis and structure-activity relationships of sulfonatocalix[4]arene hosts bearing novel substitutions. The calix[4]arenes are modified on upper rim at either one or two phenolic units, where dual modifications introduced regioselectively neighbouring opposing phenols. mono- di-functionalised with nitro formyl groups, remaining upper-rim sites in all cases occupied by sulphon...

OBJECTIVE A cross-sectional population-based study was conducted to assess, in active smokers, the relationship of number of cigarettes smoked and other characteristics to salivary cotinine concentrations. METHODS A random sample of active smokers aged 15 years or older was selected using a stepwise cluster sample strategy, in the year 2000 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The study included 401 su...

OBJECTIVE To examine the associations between a biomarker of overall passive exposure to tobacco smoke (serum cotinine concentration) and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. DESIGN Prospective population based study in general practice (the British regional heart study). PARTICIPANTS 4729 men in 18 towns who provided baseline blood samples (for cotinine assay) and a detailed smoking ...