Nicotine & Alkaloid Data for Smoked & Smokeless Tobacco

[TropicalBob]

I can also assume that if alkaloids in urine can detect the use of cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and smokeless tobacco, but fails to find alkaloids with users of NRT, then users of electronic cigarettes should come clean in such tests. E-smoking is nicotine only, unless testing Dvap's WTA liquid!

This could be valuable information for those whose companies have implemented no-smoking policies and use urine tests for cotinine to determine the miscreants.

I know of no company yet that has a no-nicotine policy (yeh, yeh, it's coming, I know).

[Madame Psychosis]

If there were a link to charts in the OP, it is not there now. I read the abstract. I'd like to see the relevant charts.

Hm...I guess they're showing up for most folks, and I put them in a public album on my profile. Not sure how to correct it any further than that... I'd be happy to email the pdf of the article with all the charts if you would PM where to send it.

I can also assume that if alkaloids in urine can detect the use of cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and smokeless tobacco, but fails to find alkaloids with users of NRT, then users of electronic cigarettes should come clean in such tests. E-smoking is nicotine only, unless testing Dvap's WTA liquid!

This could be valuable information for those whose companies have implemented no-smoking policies and use urine tests for cotinine to determine the miscreants.

The insane thing is that I swear I've come across years-old abstracts detailing methods (biomarkers) for detection of tobacco abstinence in people using NRT, to see whether they're staying compliant. Like testing the alkaloids. There are methods out there. The optimistic view is that we just have to fight the institutional stasis that is used to nicotine testing ... but people won't think rationally in the middle of a culture war, I believe.

From all I've read about nic, I haven't seen any hard evidence on how much we actually take in, be it from smoke, vape or smokeless tobacco. exo has as good as anything on his vape testing. As for anything else, it appears to be assumption.

Well...this is how they explain their method:

[...] The 24-hour dose of nicotine systemically absorbed from tobacco was determined from the area under the plasma concentration time curve for natural nicotine during ad libitum tobacco use on day 3 and from the clearance of labeled nicotine, as described previously. [...]

My mistake (tired eyes) -- they also took repeated blood levels, which ought to give a more accurate reading of nic intake than just backwards calculation alone. But that's per smoker, consuming as much as they want, not a per-cigarette calculation.

[TWISTED VICTOR]

Well...this is how they explain their method:
My mistake (tired eyes) -- they also took repeated blood levels, which ought to give a more accurate reading of nic intake than just backwards calculation alone. But that's per smoker, consuming as much as they want, not a per-cigarette calculation.

Yes.....for some reason all studies seem to be evasive on per-cigarette, except the smoking-machine ones. And those are documented to be "let's dial it in where we want it" studies. Back to circular reasoning: "Here's what we ended up with, so this must be what we started with, 'cause this is what we ended up with" .

[exogenesis]

Thanks for the full pdf Madame Psychosis

The 12 cigarette smokers (1 Black, 10 Whites, 1 Hispanic) smoked an average of 28 cigarettes per day (range = 5-40).

With 17.5mg nic per unsmoked ciggy & if I'm reading this right (average figures per day):

490 mg in 28 cigs, actual intake was 33mg, and 24 hr urine output was 2.7 mg nic & 3.4 mg cotinine.

So 93% of the nic. was destroyed in combustion, or in exhaled smoke,
& of the nic. taken up 80% was left in the body somewhere,
&/or metabolised to something other than cotinine ??).

Particularly of interest (to me at least)

Of interest is the finding that the elimination half-life of nicotine as based on urine
excretion data averaged 11 hours. This is much longer than the half-life of 2 to 3 hours
based on plasma concentrations.

The likely explanation is the slow release of nicotine from high-affinity tissue-binding sites.

Although the study was aimed at a 'novel' biomarker method

(the minor alkaloids), it's yielding other interesting info.

[DVap]

I've seen this before... didn't really give it much attention, but now that I'm not crazily extracting tobacco, I might should take a better look at it.

[Madame Psychosis]

Although the study was aimed at a 'novel' biomarker method

(the minor alkaloids), it's yielding other interesting info.

And this is exactly why it's great to share information with smart people... I'm so glad you pulled that out exo. I zoned in on the alkaloid charts and basic methods, put it aside temporarily and then got distracted by other searches, and your eagle eyes found some other truly interesting info in there.

As to what happens to the other 80% of the nicotine ... I've read figures of ~70% conversion to cotinine by the liver.

Some must stay in body tissue as well. Totally forgot about that factor before in talking about metabolism. (Mostly because I kinda get the liver stuff, and other issues are less familiar to me.)

I'll ask an MD friend about high-affinity tissue-binding sites...it's not a subject I know much about.
(I do know that chronic users of a drug have to wait much longer than one-time users before they give a clean urine, for instance. Tissues continue to eliminate the drug as well and a long-time user will be more "saturated". I wonder if the established standard half-life data for plasma and excretion was based on nicotine-naïve test subjects?)

[exogenesis]

If 70% of the nic. taken up is converted to cotinine, perhaps the liver
(or other tissues) hold on to the cotinine for far longer than 24 hours then ?

Will be interested in what your MD friend can tell us, for heavy snus-ers maybe
high affinity tissue is that part of the gum/palette that isn't already saturated with bound-up nic.

[TWISTED VICTOR]

exo....I wasn't gonna say anything, but since you keep pushing the issue I'll let you in on a secret, I have nic pouches . Sorta like a hamster.

[a2dcovert]

Hamster is exactly what I feel like. I've been running around on the little wheel for 10 months. I never seem to get very far.

I wasn't prepared for the discovery that snus uptake was far from black & white. It seems to be a bigger wildcard than eJuice. The old fashion analog was very predictable, much easier to deal with.

[exogenesis]

Henceforce TV shall be known as Twisted Hamster.


Do you mean unpredictable in practice, or in the theory of it ?,
would have though once you settle on a favourite brand/flavour/strength you'd soon get into a routine,
at least that's what I'm hoping for.