Smoking mentholated cigarettes has been suggested to convey a greater cancer risk compared with smoking nonmentholated cigarettes. Two of the possible mechanisms by which mentholated cigarette smoking could increase risk are by increasing systemic exposure to tobacco smoke toxins and by affecting the metabolism of nicotine or tobacco smoke carcinogens. To examine these possibilities, we perform...

BACKGROUND There is a paucity of data regarding the microbial constituents of tobacco products and their impacts on public health. Moreover, there has been no comparative characterization performed on the bacterial microbiota associated with the addition of menthol, an additive that has been used by tobacco manufacturers for nearly a century. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted bacteria...

BACKGROUND US mentholated cigarette sales have increased considerably over 50 years. Preference for mentholated cigarettes is markedly higher in Black people. While menthol itself is not genotoxic or carcinogenic, its acute respiratory effects might affect inhalation of cigarette smoke. This possibility seems consistent with the higher lung cancer risk in Black men, despite Black people smoking...

INTRODUCTION The effect of menthol on nicotine disposition is important in understanding smoking behaviors among different racial groups. The present study was to evaluate whether menthol affects the pharmacokinetics of nicotine after cigarette smoke inhalation. METHODS Rats were exposed to mainstream smoke from either a nonmentholated or mentholated cigarette (1 puff/min for 10 min) using a ...

OBJECTIVE To determine if cigarette mentholation is associated with the frequency of smoking and with quitting, and whether mentholation explains racial differences in these two smoking behaviours. DESIGN Cross sectional analysis of case-control data on smoking and lung cancer. SUBJECTS Limited to 19 545 current and former cigarette smokers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Smoking > 20 cigarettes p...

BACKGROUND There is limited knowledge about the use of cigarettes by blacks outside the United States (U.S). Nigeria creates an opportunity to explore smoking behaviours, smoking cessation (nicotine dependence) and use of cigarettes in a country that has a large black population outside the U.S. METHODS We conducted three Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) involving twenty-four male migrant worke...

We sought to discover if the higher risk among men of lung cancer associated with mentholated than with plain cigarettes applied as well to other smoking related cancers (upper aerodigestive: mouth, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus; pancreas, renal adenocarcinoma, other urinary tract (urothelium), cervix). In 1979–1985, 79 946 subscribers of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in northern Cal...

Tobacco products, specifically cigarettes, are home to microbial ecosystems that may play an important role in the generation of carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), as well as the onset of multiple adverse human health effects associated with the use of these products. Therefore, we conducted time-series experiments with five commercially available brands of cigarettes that were...

OBJECTIVE To examine the association between the use of menthol cigarettes and smoking cessation, amount smoked, and time to first cigarette in the morning. BACKGROUND The majority of African American smokers smoke mentholated cigarettes. Some evidence suggests that African Americans may be more nicotine dependent than whites. One theory is that menthol in cigarettes is responsible for enhanc...

Approximately one-fourth of all cigarettes sold in the United States are mentholated. An understanding of the consequences, patterns, and correlates of menthol cigarette use can guide the development and implementation of strategies to reduce smoking prevalence and smoking-attributable morbidity and mortality. This paper summarizes the literature on the health effects of mentholated cigarettes ...