Transdermal nicotine attenuates depression symptoms in nonsmokers: a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Despite established links between nicotine dependence and depression, little research has examined the effects of nicotine on depression symptoms.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, both men and women.

Nonsmokers with scores >or=10 on the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D) were recruited from the community.

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) group a baseline to be compared against.

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.

Mood and cognitive performance were measured at baseline (day 0) and at 1, 8, 21, and 28 days.

The final sample consisted of 11 nonsmokers with a mean baseline CES-D score of 27.36 (SD=10.53).

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Administration, Cutaneous, Affect, Analysis of Variance, Antidepressive Agents, Cognition, Depression and Nicotine.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 7 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2006 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

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