Battelle Public Health Center for Tobacco Research, Baltimore, MD.
Office of Science, Center for Tobacco Products, US Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD.
Nicotine Tob Res. 2018 Feb 7;20(3):393-398. doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntx054.
Cigars are combusted tobacco products consisting of filler, binder, and wrapper, which are derived from tobacco. Despite the abundance of literature on the composition of traditional combusted cigarettes, research is limited on the physical and chemical properties of cigars. Therefore, research on cigar properties may be useful to better understand their health impact.
In this study, twenty large cigar and cigarillo products were characterized for physical properties (ie, weight, length, and diameter), filler nicotine content, and tobacco pH. Tobacco pH was used to calculate free nicotine content, free nicotine concentration, and percent free nicotine for all cigars using the Henderson-Hasselbach equation. An additional analysis was performed on a second batch of two large cigar and two cigarillo brands to determine within-brand consistency. All analyses were performed in triplicate.
The initial analysis of the twenty cigars showed that cigars exhibited wide variation in product size and nicotine content, although tobacco pH was similar across cigars. Furthermore, in the two large cigar and cigarillo brands analyzed a second time, there was considerable within-brand variance in nicotine content and concentration between the first and second analyses.
While only a small sample of commercially-available cigars was analyzed, our data suggest there is wide variability in nicotine content and some physical properties in the domestic cigar market. The data may help to inform potential future regulatory decisions related to these products.
This study reveals some of the challenges to experimental cigar research and illustrates the need to characterize cigar products (eg, nicotine and tobacco content) before use in clinical studies. Additional studies and characterization of the physical and chemical properties of cigars may be useful to further understand these products' toxicity, abuse potential, and public health impact.
雪茄是由填充料、粘合剂和包装纸组成的可燃烟草制品，这些都源自烟草。尽管有大量关于传统可燃香烟成分的文献，但对雪茄的物理和化学性质的研究却很有限。因此，研究雪茄的性质可能有助于更好地了解其对健康的影响。
在这项研究中，对二十种大型雪茄和小雪茄产品的物理特性（即重量、长度和直径）、填充尼古丁含量以及烟草 pH 值进行了表征。使用 Henderson-Hasselbach 方程，根据烟草 pH 值计算所有雪茄的游离尼古丁含量、游离尼古丁浓度和游离尼古丁百分比。对另外两个大型雪茄和两个小雪茄品牌的第二个批次也进行了分析，以确定品牌内的一致性。所有分析均重复三次进行。
最初对二十种雪茄的分析表明，尽管雪茄的烟草 pH 值相似，但产品尺寸和尼古丁含量差异很大。此外，在第二次分析的两个大型雪茄和小雪茄品牌中，尼古丁含量和浓度在第一次和第二次分析之间存在很大的品牌内差异。
尽管只分析了一小部分市售雪茄，但我们的数据表明，国内雪茄市场尼古丁含量和一些物理特性存在很大差异。这些数据可能有助于为这些产品的未来监管决策提供信息。
本研究揭示了雪茄实验研究的一些挑战，并说明了在临床研究中使用之前，对雪茄产品（如尼古丁和烟草含量）进行特征描述的必要性。对雪茄的物理和化学性质进行更多的研究和描述，可能有助于进一步了解这些产品的毒性、滥用潜力和对公共健康的影响。
