OBJECTIVE To examine tobacco industry marketing of menthol cigarettes and to determine what the tobacco industry knew about consumer perceptions of menthol. METHODS A snowball sampling design was used to systematically search the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL) (http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu) between 28 February and 27 April 2010. Of the approximately 11 million documents available i...

The effects of alcohol monoterpene menthol, a major active ingredient of the peppermint plant was tested on the function of human hydroxytryptamine type 3 (5-HT3) receptors expressed in Xenopus oocytes. 5-HT (1 μM)-evoked currents recorded by two-electrode voltage clamp technique were reversibly inhibited by menthol in a concentrationdependent (IC50=163 μM) manner. The effects of menthol develo...

BACKGROUND African Americans have higher tobacco-related morbidity and mortality and are more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than their white counterparts. This study examined differences between African American menthol and non-menthol smokers in smoking characteristics and cessation. METHODS The study sample consisted of 600 African American smokers enrolled in a clinical trial that ass...

Menthol, the cooling natural product of peppermint, is widely used in medicinal preparations for the relief of acute and inflammatory pain in sports injuries, arthritis, and other painful conditions. Menthol induces the sensation of cooling by activating TRPM8, an ion channel in cold-sensitive peripheral sensory neurons. Recent studies identified additional targets of menthol, including the irr...

Purpose: Due to the antimicrobial property, menthol have significant potential for food preservation and foodstuff shelf life improvement. Nevertheless, menthol instability, insolubility, and rapid crystallization in aqueous media make it unsuitable for used in food products. This work was aimed to prepare menthol-loaded nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) to enhance its antimicrobial activity...

In the U.S. menthol remains the sole permitted characterizing cigarette flavor additive in part because efforts to link menthol cigarette use to increased tobacco-related disease risk have been inconclusive. To perform definitive studies, cigarettes that differ only in menthol content are required, yet these are not commercially available. We prepared research cigarettes differing only in menth...

BACKGROUND Although menthol was not banned under the Tobacco Control Act, the law made it clear that this did not prevent the Food and Drug Administration from issuing a product standard to ban menthol to protect public health. The purpose of this review was to update the evidence synthesis regarding the role of menthol in initiation, dependence and cessation. METHODS A systematic review of t...

Menthol and many of its derivatives produce profound sensory and mental effects. The receptor for menthol has been cloned and named cold- and menthol-sensitive receptor-1 (CMR1) or transient receptor potential channel M8 (TRPM8) receptor. Using a dorsal root ganglion (DRG) and dorsal horn (DH) coculture system as a model for the first sensory synapse in the CNS, we studied menthol effects on se...

Menthol is a widely-used cooling and flavoring agent derived from mint leaves. In the peripheral nervous system, menthol regulates sensory transduction by activating TRPM8 channels residing specifically in primary sensory neurons. Although behavioral studies have implicated menthol actions in the brain, no direct central target of menthol has been identified. Here we show that menthol reduces t...

The effects of alcohol monoterpene menthol, a major active ingredient of the peppermint plant, were tested on the function of human 5-hydroxytryptamine type 3 (5-HT3) receptors expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes. 5-HT (1 μM)-evoked currents recorded by two-electrode voltage-clamp technique were reversibly inhibited by menthol in a concentration-dependent (IC50 = 163 μM) manner. The effects of ...