Panel Questions Tobacco Therapies

WASHINGTON (AP) - Anti-smoking therapies and modified tobacco products have the potential to reduce the danger of smoking, but not enough is known about their use to be certain, a research panel said Thursday.

A variety of products have come on the market in recent years, promoted to help people stop smoking or reduce tobacco usage. These range from nicotine replacement gum, patches, inhalers and nasal spray to cigarette-like products that produce less smoke and even modified tobacco with fewer toxic chemicals.

About 48 million Americans smoke, a practice that kills 400,000 each year. Smoking causes heart disease and lung diseases like emphysema and lung cancer and increases people's risks of other cancers.

The Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, studied the products intended to help people quit smoking at the request of the Food and Drug Administration.

In a report titled ``Clearing the Smoke,'' an institute committee concluded that the products ``are potentially beneficial'' but said not enough is known about results of their use to reach a conclusion on their health impact.

``We believe that it may be possible to reduce harm from tobacco use with new products, but we frankly do not know the health effects of the various products on the market that claim to do this,'' Stuart Bondurant, chairman of the panel that prepared the report, said in a statement.

Bondurant is a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Use of the products could potentially reduce individuals' exposure to tobacco, the report said, but the end result depends on the actions of the individual. These have not been sufficiently studied, it said.

The committee indicated the possibility that some products could even increase danger by encouraging smoking. For example, some of the products still contain tobacco, and people might use others as a way to cut back on smoking but not to quit altogether.

Tobacco specialists have been debating the value of cutting back versus quitting smoking. When people quit, their bodies start healing, and some have speculated that cutting back on smoking also could be helpful.

A recent Mayo Clinic study indicated, however, that just cutting back instead of quitting won't help. The surprise finding showed levels of toxins in heavy smokers' bodies did not decrease when they cut smoking in half.

The Institute of Medicine report noted that filter cigarettes and low-yield cigarettes were once thought to offer reduced danger by cutting back on the nicotine and other chemicals smokers inhaled. But studies found that at least some smokers changed their smoking patterns, inhaling deeper, to get the same amount of nicotine and other chemicals.

The panel called for regulation of products designed to help people stop smoking along with increased research into the products and their effects.