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 In addition, very few realize that added sugar increases toxins in
cigarette smoke, the study authors wrote in the journal Nicotine and
Tobacco Research.
"Knowledge is power and there is a clear gap in awareness," said
lead researcher Andrew Seidenberg, a public health doctoral student
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Cigarettes contain natural and added sugars to reduce the harshness
of smoke, making it easier to inhale. This also 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, survey takers answered two questions about added sugars
in 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 survey takers knew sugar
was added to cigarettes. The proportion who knew this was never
higher than 10 percent when respondents were grouped by
characteristics like gender, age, income, education level, race and
ethnicity.
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And only 3.8 percent of survey respondents knew added sugar
increases toxins in smoke.
"We were really surprised that nearly all of the smokers surveyed
didn't know that sugar is added to their cigarettes," Seidenberg
said.
He and colleagues are developing messages about added sugar in
cigarettes to determine if they're helpful for smoking cessation
programs. In a television campaign in Australia, for instance, an ad
set to the popular song "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
can't be hidden."
Noel Brewer, who has researched cigarette pack messages about toxic
chemicals, as well as public understanding of cigarette smoke
ingredients, is, like Seidenberg, from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, but he isn't 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 don't."
"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.
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