Antidepression drug beats nicotine therapy in helping women quit smoking.(Brief Article)

2002 JUN 27 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A smoking cessation medication that is also used to treat depression may be a better choice than nicotine replacement therapy for women who want to quit smoking for good, a new study indicates.

Guidelines used by clinicians nationwide to help patients quit using tobacco recommend a combination of counseling and medication. However, recent research shows that women may not respond as well as men to nicotine replacement therapy, the most frequently purchased medication. Women are less likely than men to succeed in quitting, and those who do quit are more likely to start smoking again.

David Gonzales, PhD, of Oregon Health and Science University's Smoking Cessation Center, examined the effects of an alternative medication to see if it would produce more equal success rates among men and women. The medication, bupropion (marketed under the name Zyban), contains no nicotine and is also prescribed as an antidepressant (Wellbutrin).

The results appear in the May 2002 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Bupropion might be more effective than nicotine replacement for women, Gonzales explained, because it may better control some of the symptoms that are particularly common among women when they give up cigarettes: depression, anticipation of anxiety and tension and concern about weight gain.

Gonazales and his colleagues followed participants in a smoking cessation study conducted at five major clinical centers in the United States. All 784 participants received bupropion at the start of the study. After seven weeks, the researchers assigned 432 of the men and women who had stopped smoking to two groups. One group continued to take bupropion for the next 45 weeks, while the other group switched to a placebo.

Women ...