Talk:Nicotine gum

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 September 2019 and 13 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Januvia Nguyen, Kwokt (article contribs).

Withdrawal and reenforcing addiction

I'm glad someone had the good sense to delete the editorial below. Clocke (talk) 05:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried to put the following into the nicotine patch article, but it was removed within minutes:

Nicotine is a relatively easy drug to quit. As far as I know, not one person has ever died from nicotine withdrawal. Moreover, nicotine dependency is short-lived. Nicotine is completely out of the body in 48 hours. At that point, physical cravings cease. Anyone who can go 48 hours without a cigarette stands a really good chance of quitting. Nicotine is highly addictive, however. Any small amount, even from second-hand smoke, will immediately reenforce nicotine addiction - resetting the clock back to 48 hours. The nicotine patch will guarantee that the addiction clock is reset back to 48 hours every time it is used. Logic might suggest that one cannot end nicotine addiction by taking nicotine. Unlike heroine or alcohol withdrawal, you cannot die from smoking cessation. Therefore, a step-down program would appear to be unnecessary, and fails as a quitting aid in a great many cases.

Perhaps the best method to fight cravings is exercise which causes the body to produce its own endorphins. These endorphins in turn negate many of the effects of withdrawal.

It seems likely that the cigarette industry would love to convince everyone that it is impossible to quit smoking. That way, people would not ever try to quit. Short of this, the next best thing would be to convince everyone that it is very difficult to quit smoking. Then people will give-up trying more easily.

CP133 2019 Group #2 Proposed Edits

Kaycee: An additional section I think could be added is about the gums use as a combination therapy agent with other NRT for tobacco cessation and how that would be used depending in comparison to monotherapy, as well as include data of how efficacious monotherapy vs combination therapy is. Could potential turn the efficacy comparison into its own separate section as well.Ksangustinnordmeier (talk) 04:47, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

How can this information be included in the article? Or is this article monitored by the advertising agencies and public relations firms for the patch sellers and the cigarette companies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 21:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Ai: In the Medical uses section, I want to start off by describing stepwise how to chew the nicotine gum properly in bullet points to make it easier for readers to follow. In addition, it should include the definition of light and heavy smokers (first cigarette within 30 minutes of waking up or not), so the strength recommendation can be more informative. I would also use a more reliable source (Lexicomp or Medscape) to cite the dosage instead of Dental-professional.com website. After the usage instructions, other special notes such as warning for pregnant women, when is the best time to use the gum, etc can also be grouped together in a separate paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aivu93 (talk • contribs) 04:50, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Tiffany: The section about availability mentions that there was a steep price fall in Australia in 2010, which was over 9 years ago. Consider revamping this section so that it's more organized (headers for different regions?) and doing an updated search on state of the market now. (Same with Britain and 2016). I think something to show efficacy would also be good, to demonstrate to readers that the nicotine gum works. (show efficacy in terms of relapse/remission, how efficacious it is compared to other nicotine replacement products) Kwokt (talk) 04:59, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

POV/sources

This article very few sources and has a very strong bias. I will do what I can but I can't write the whole thing. I would appriciate some help cleaning this up. I am not going to bother pointing out the POV issues as they are very clear. Foolishben 09:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

A lot needs fixing

There are no sections, the text is often speculative, and there seems to be a lack of factual information. I'd like to help, but as someone quitting smoking, I came on here looking for education, so I don't have much to contribute. Pipedreambomb

I'm with you on that. I've just removed "Popular brands include Nicorette, Commit, NicoDerm, Nicotrol, and Nicotinell in the UK." from the lead/head section as Nicotinell and Nicorette were the only 2 gum products in that list. (Commit is a lozenge, NicoDerm is "the patch", Nicotrol comes as either an inhaler or a nasal spary.) They are all Nicotine replacment therapies but.... really, just sloppy. All I did was go to their websites. Syrrys 23:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps this entry should be combined with Nicotine polacrilex, as that is the active ingredient in all these nicotine replacements -- or combined with Nicotine replacement therapy, as that is the more general topic. In any case, focusing on the gum alone is misleading; as has been pointed out, this stuff also comes in patches and lozenges. Also, focusing on (or arguing about) brands is beside the point, as there are dozens of generics on the market, and surely, it would be inappropriate (and likely impossible) to name them all. Clocke (talk) 06:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality Dispute

The first paragraph under "Risks" is biased and non-encyclopedic.

Must be neutralized.

Agree with neutrality problem

The article strongly understates the benifits of replacing smoking with (even chronic) nicotine gum use. Has it been verified that none of the (thousands of) other compounds in cigarette smoke are addictive, really? Seems unlikely. Meanwhile of course, its abundantly clear that some of these compounds ARE carcinogenic and that cigarette smoking causes emphysema and heart disease.

Disagree

If it 'strongly understates' the benefits of replacement therapy, then it also strongly understates the poor efficacy of such therapies. Few who use gum will be non-smokers after a year or more (UK Gov figures)

But very few who try try to give up smoking without it will be non-smokers after a year or more too.195.195.109.138 18:33, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that and wish to dispute the references both to the gum being a gateway to oral tobacco use (this is absurd and there is no evidence to back it up) as well as the reference to smokeless tobacco as hazardous. Current evidence indicates that (1) smokeless tobacco and pharmaceutical nicotine sources are relatively similar when it comes to health risks and (2) anything that replaces smoking is an improvement. At some later date, I'll have a go at editing the article up however though I know quite a bit about relative health risks I don't know quite enough about this product to do a good job on it. Pbergen1 (talk) 18:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Nicotine content relative to cigarettes in first paragraph

It should be relative to the amount of nicotine absorbed when smoking a cigarette; as a cigarette contains more nicotine that is burnt off. I don't really want to edit it in a misleading way so can someone else edit it? Sources; other wikipedia articles on nicotine and nicotine poisoning ('As shown by the physical data, free base nicotine will burn at a temperature below its boiling point, and its vapors will combust at 308 K (35 °C; 95 °F) in air despite a low vapor pressure. Because of this, most of the nicotine is burned when a cigarette is smoked; however, enough is inhaled to cause pharmacological effects.' and 'Sixty milligrams of nicotine, the amount in about five cigarettes' in the articles respectively). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.51.155 (talk) 23:44, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Removal of Gum Disease Section

So there was a section saying that there was (fairly baseless in my albeit completely inxperienced opinion) "speculation" that prolonged use of nicotine gum may leaad to gum disease, without referencing anyone who speculated this, but instead a citation to a paper showing that there was no link between nicotine gum and oral health. I removed this section, but if anyone wants to look for conflicting evidence feel free. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.19.110 (talk) 10:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

source of nicotine?

Where do the manufacturers get the nicotine which they put into the gum? Is it synthesized through some industrial process? Or is it extracted from tobacco plants? If so, is it fair to say that purchasing nicotine replacement therapy products support tobacco farmers (even to a small degree)? Thanks140.180.254.221 (talk) 14:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)