Nicotine & Alkaloid Data for Smoked & Smokeless Tobacco

[Madame Psychosis]

I just came upon a paper in my reading that may be of interest to others.

The paper's abstract is here; full text is gated, but I have it as a .pdf for anyone who wants to dig into it.

Jacob et al. Minor tobacco alkaloids as biomarkers for tobacco use: comparison of users of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipes. American Journal of Public Health 1999 May;89(5):731-6. PMID:10224986.

The three relevant charts:

(I was surprised to find that the venerable Dr. Alex Shulgin, scientist-hippie guru of entheogens and hallucinogens, was second author.)

I won't comment for now as I'm still digesting it and trying to understand where it might fit with my layman's understanding of a few things.

It only covers four alkaloids -- nicotine, nornicotine, anatabine, anabasine -- but it's the first I've come across to do any side-by-side comparison of different methods of tobacco intake with regard to any of the alkaloids.

 

[Katmar]

I just came upon a paper in my reading that may be of interest to others.

The paper's abstract is here; full text is gated, but I have it as a .pdf for anyone who wants to dig into it.

Jacob et al. Minor tobacco alkaloids as biomarkers for tobacco use: comparison of users of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, cigars, and pipes. American Journal of Public Health 1999 May;89(5):731-6. PMID:10224986.

The three relevant charts:

(I was surprised to find that the venerable Dr. Alex Shulgin, scientist-hippie guru of entheogens and hallucinogens, was second author.)

I won't comment for now as I'm still digesting it and trying to understand where it might fit with my layman's understanding of a few things.

It only covers four alkaloids -- nicotine, nornicotine, anatabine, anabasine -- but it's the first I've come across to do any side-by-side comparison of different methods of tobacco intake with regard to any of the alkaloids.

Madame, this is wonderful. Please write more when you have translated and broken it down to layman's terms!!

 

[Caesarea]

I'm sure DVap and the gang will fall on that with glee.

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

Oow Madame, what an exciting find..........what's it all mean? Nicotine, nornicotine, anatabine and anabasine have all been discussed, but the amounts??? Also, Table 3 "Systemic nicotine intake from tobacco was determined through pharmacokenetic techniques...", I wonder how they actually determined it? ...raising too many questions....room spinning....

 

[Madame Psychosis]

Katmar--I'm afraid I mostly posted these for anyone who would be curious for the data, and to link to my rambling over in the Nic absorption from snus thread...
The intriguing part is in comparing tables 1 and 2, and smokeless tobacco versus cigarettes:

Notice how anatabine and anabasine are present in higher %s in cigarette tobacco, but much more of them is excreted by smokeless tobacco users.

I think this has been covered before in other threads, but it basically seems to show that more of these alkaloids are kept intact for consumption in smokeless tobacco (versus burning them off in cigs) and more of them reach the user. Less nic, more of these other alkaloids.

Don't know if this would apply to the MAOIs like norharman as well. Too bad it's just four of them...and doesn't cover snus.

...Also, Table 3 "Systemic nicotine intake from tobacco was determined through pharmacokenetic techniques...", I wonder how they actually determined it?...

(for anyone who's curious...'pharmacokinetics' just means 'what your body does to a drug' - i.e. how your body alters it and gets rid of it.)

My guess? They basically worked backward knowing the usual % of nicotine excreted in the urine and estimated how much nicotine intake that represents. I've heard 2-35% of nicotine is excreted unchanged by the body, but they probably had techniques for more precise estimates.

(Has there been any discussion here of the changes in alkaloid concentrations during the curing of snus? I can't find anything...)

 

[Katmar]

Madame,
Thank you for explaining, even though you have done it in another thread.
Guilty of not reading through it all....
Thanks again.

 

[exogenesis]

Interesting find Madame Psychosis, does seem to be a significant difference between ciggy tobacco
and snuff (closest to snus ?).

Trouble is I think ciggy tobacco is heavily processed & is effectively reconstituted,
so they can make it contain whatever they like.
Do they deliberately alter the ratios of these alkaloids (and add other stuff) - quite probably.

I think the more 'natural' processes used for smokeless tobacco (for snus at least)
keeps the 'total amount of alkaloids' intact, but there's cross-conversion during the process,
certainly nicotine to nor-nicotine is a known (by e.g. leaf enzymes apparently).

e.g. the table in this post:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/smokeless-tobacco/58366-nic-absorption-snus-3.html#post937302

shows some heavy-duty conversion of nicotine to nornicotine dring air-curing,
(not sure I believe that degree tho - may be a table-column error ?),
and the doubling of the content 'other' alkaloids.

This also addresses your last sentence in your 2nd post, but I pretty sure (real) snus aren't fermented,
but but air-cured & steam-pasteurised, wonder what the process is for snuff.


Ratio of 'Nicotine intake in 24hr' to 'Nicotine content' seems to similar in ciggies & snuff,
but as you say a strange huge difference in the excretion to content ratios for the other alkaloid - very interesting.

Would definately be interested in the full pdf if available....

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

My guess? They basically worked backward knowing the usual % of nicotine excreted in the urine and estimated how much nicotine intake that represents. I've heard 2-35% of nicotine is excreted unchanged by the body, but they probably had techniques for more precise estimates.

In other words...circular thinking. 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. So they determine the beginning based on the end......well, I'm lost as usual.....


exo, I knew you'd appreciate Madame's post. It's right up your alley.

 

[TWISTED VICTOR]

wonder what the process is for snuff.

I believe all snuff, be it oral or nasal, is fermented. Need a guru to step in.........

 

[TropicalBob]

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.

 

[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.