Post-puff respiration measures on smokers of different tar yield cigarettes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of different tar yield cigarette brands on the post-puff inhalation/exhalation depth and duration for established smokers of the brands. The study was conducted with 74 established smokers of 1-17 mg Federal Trade Commission (FTC) tar products. The subjects were participating in a five-day inpatient clinical biomarker study during which time they were allowed to smoke their own brand of cigarette whenever they wished. On two separate days, the subjects’ breathing pattern was measured using respiratory inductive plethysmography while they smoked one cigarette. This enabled the measurement of the post-puff inhalation volume, exhalation volume, inhalation duration, and exhalation duration for each subject after each puff on two of their own brand of cigarettes.

The subjects were grouped according to the FTC tar yield of their product: 1–3 mg; 4–6 mg; 7–13 mg; 14 + mg. The post-puff inhalation volume for the 4–6 mg group was significantly lower than both the 7–13 mg and 14+ mg groups, and the 4–6 mg group exhalation volume was significantly lower than the 14+ mg group (p < 0.05). No other differences were found at the 95% confidence level. When volumes were normalized to resting tidal volume (tidal ratio), there were no differences between the groups for any of the respiratory measures. No significant slope was found for correlations with FTC tar yield for inhalation volume (p = 0.11, mean = 833 mL, R = 0.19), inhalation tidal ratio (p = 0.93, mean = 1.73, R = −0.01) or lung exposure time (p = 0.92, mean = 4.1 s, R = −0.01).

Acknowledgment

This study was funded by British American Tobacco Ltd. and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. prior to the latter’s merger with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Preparation of the manuscript was funded by British American Tobacco Ltd. Special thanks to Drs. M. Dixon, M. Ogden, and M. Borgerding for their helpful comments.

F.K. St. Charles is currently consulting for British American Tobacco, Southampton, UK, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.