New pill could help smokers quit — for good

Though quitting tobacco smoking has health benefits, it’s also easier said than done, hence the numerous products on the market promising to help smokers.

A new medication aimed at helping people quit smoking has appeared on the map, one that may be more effective for users than nicotine replacement gum and patches.

According to The New York Times , a 2023 study involving 12 randomized controlled trials on the medication found it to be doubly as efficacious at helping participants quit smoking as a placebo and more effective than nicotine patches and gum.

Cytisine was also found to be similarly efficacious to varenicline, known as Chantix, another popular medication among people looking to quit tobacco.

It has been approved in both the U.K. and Canada, and is now being considered in the U.S. as a possible smoking cessation treatment.

The science behind cytisine

One of the main reasons it’s so difficult for people to quit is the cravings, not that they go into withdrawals. Once withdrawal symptoms have passed, there’s still every opportunity for people to crave nicotine. For many, smoking is a way to curb stress, though studies have shown that smoking can actually worsen symptoms of anxiety.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most smokers in 2022 wanted to quit smoking, but only half actually tried, and 10% of those who tried to quit did it successfully.

According to the Times , nicotine patches and gum have not been more effective because they don’t target the formation of cravings, merely withdrawal symptoms.

Cytisine, similarly to varenicline, targets nicotine receptors in the brain and binds to them, which curbs cravings through decreasing the satisfaction people get from smoking.

A clinical trial found that out of 810 participants, 21.1% of them taking cytisine weren’t smoking after six months, compared to 4.8% of participants taking the placebo.

Why cytisine?

If cytisine works about as well as varenicline, why does the market need another smoking cessation medication?

According to the Times , varenicline has become harder to come by in recent years, as it’s been affected by a medication shortage, and it isn’t covered by all insurance companies. It can also be expensive.

Cytisine, on the other hand, is cheap to make and a “tobacco treatment hiding in plain sight,” Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Nancy A. Rigotti said, per The New York Times.

The other majorly marketed products branded to help smoking cessation are the nicotine patches and gum, which just aren’t cutting it.

Mitch Zeller, a former Food and Drug Administration associate commissioner, told the Times, “The products that have been approved don’t work very well in the real world.”