Lowering nicotine levels in cigarettes could save millions of lives

Chronic tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of 18 cancer types, heart and pulmonary disease, and premature death in the U.S. 

In observance of National Lung Cancer Awareness month this November, Masonic Cancer Center researcher Dr. Dana Carroll can speak to how reducing nicotine content in all cigarettes sold in the U.S. can lead to meaningful health benefits by making it easier for people to quit smoking and preventing young people from becoming addicted to smoking. 

Dana Carroll

“Lung cancer — most often caused by smoking — continues to be the leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. Our recent research suggests that a national policy to reduce nicotine content in all cigarettes would not only save millions of lives across the country but could also be a major step toward closing health gaps. This policy is expected to have an especially strong benefit for communities that have been most harmed by smoking — including rural communities, Native American communities, and Black and African American communities. People in these groups are likely to gain more years of life and avoid more smoking-related deaths than you would expect based on their share of the total U.S. population."

“This policy, proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to curb the nearly half-million deaths caused by smoking each year, is the outcome of over a decade of research led by University of Minnesota researchers including Dr. Dorothy Hatsukami and her team.”

Dana Carroll is an associate professor in the Medical School on the Twin Cities campus and director of tobacco research programs for the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota. She is an epidemiologist and a certified tobacco treatment specialist, and her research focuses on identifying and evaluating smoking cessation strategies with a focus on American Indian and rural populations.

This story was originally published by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.