Few smokers know about added sugar in cigarettes

(Reuters Health) – Very few smokers know there is sugar added to cigarettes, a new survey suggests.

In addition, the authors wrote in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

"Andrew Seidenberg," said lead researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a public health doctoral student.

Cigarettes contain natural and added sugars to reduce the harshness of smoke, making it easier to inhale. This increases the amount of harmful chemicals in smoke and the addictive potential of smoking, Seidenberg said.

"Many participants told us they wanted to learn more about sugar in cigarettes," Seidenberg told Reuters Health by email. "So there is an opportunity to educate the public."

Seidenberg and colleagues surveyed 4,350 adult cigarette smokers by recruiting them through Amazon Mechanical Turk to participate in an online experiment on e-cigarette advertising. At the end of the experiment, a survey of cigarettes and cigarettes: "Is sugar added to cigarettes?" And "Adding sugar to cigarettes increases toxins in cigarette smoke. Before this survey, had you ever heard of this effect of added sugar? "Participants also had the option of providing open-ended comments at the end of the study.

The researchers found that 5.5 percent of the survey takers knew more about cigarettes. The proportion who knew this was never higher than 10 percent when they were grouped by characteristics like gender, age, income, education level, race and ethnicity.

And only 3.8 percent of the survey.

"We were really surprised that all smokers surveyed did not know that sugar was added to their cigarettes," Seidenberg said.

He and colleagues are in the process of developing a new and successful diet. In a television campaign in Australia, for instance, "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies concluded with the following text on the screen: "Additives such as sugar and honey can hide the bitter taste of tobacco. But the damage cigarettes do not be hidden. "

Noel Brewer, who has researched cigarette pack messages about toxic chemicals, is, like Seidenberg, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but is not a coauthor of the current study. "Added sugar in cigarettes creates a trifecta of death," Brewer told Reuters Health by email. "It makes cigarettes more appealing, more addictive and more lethal. Smokers should be able to know what they are smoking and they do not. "

"Cigarettes are dangerous in so many different ways that it's hard for people to keep track," Brewer said. "Scientists keep finding new ways that cigarettes create harm and death."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2yBTBmF Nicotine and Tobacco Research, online October 17, 2018.