Nicotine is more reinforcing in smokers with a past history of alcoholism than in smokers without this history.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), published as a randomized controlled trial.

To examine nicotine reinforcement, participants reported preference among the gums, reported on money versus gum choices, and, on the 4th day, underwent a double-blind self-administration test.

Why It Was Studied

Whether smokers with a past history (PH) but not current history of alcohol dependence are more nicotine dependent than smokers with no such history (NH) is unclear.

The present study was an experimental test of this hypothesis.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and crossover study.

Because people in this Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Twenty PH and 10 NH smokers abstained from smoking for 16 hr on each of 4 days.

What Was Measured

The present study was an experimental test of this hypothesis.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Alcoholism, Analysis of Variance, Central Nervous System Stimulants, Chewing Gum, Nicotine, Polymethacrylic Acids and Polyvinyls.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and crossover study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Results are reported in around 3 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2000 (Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research), a journal based in England.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.