Menstrual phase and depressive symptoms differences in physiological response to nicotine following acute smoking abstinence.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Accumulating evidence has linked depressive symptoms and sex hormones to risk for relapse; however, the specific mechanisms involved in these associations remain unknown.

This randomized crossover study assessed physiological response to nicotine by menstrual phase in female smokers with and without depressive symptoms following acute smoking abstinence.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults and adults, women only.

Females, ages 18-40 years with regular menstrual cycles, not on exogenous hormones or psychotropic medications, who reported smoking ≥ 5 cigarettes/day were enrolled.

Participants were stratified into 2 groups: no depressive symptoms (NDS; n = 23) and depressive symptoms (DS; n = 24).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized 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.

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.

Participants used nicotine nasal spray at Time 0, and blood pressure, heart rate, and serum nicotine were measured at Time -1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, and 90 min.

What Was Measured

This randomized crossover study assessed physiological response to nicotine by menstrual phase in female smokers with and without depressive symptoms following acute smoking abstinence.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Depression, Follicular Phase, Luteal Phase, Menstrual Cycle, Nicotine, Recurrence and Risk Factors.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco), a journal based in England.

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