Mainstream smoke chemistry analysis of samples from the 2009 US cigarette market
Highlights
► Stratified market allows view of entire market with small sampling. ► Smoking with the Health Canada smoking regimen maintains “tar” category rankings. ► Normalization by nicotine reverses rank ordering. ► Mostly, non-menthol and menthol cigarette yields were not significantly different.
Introduction
Over the years, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has conducted surveys of the US cigarette marketplace in order to provide a snapshot of the range of market yields for selected mainstream smoke constituents and mutagenicity. In the past, these surveys were conducted using the Cambridge Filter Method (CFM) for smoking the cigarettes evaluated (Steele et al., 1995, Swauger et al., 1997, Swauger et al., 2002, deBethizy, 1998, Chepiga et al., 2000). With the onset of interest in smoking regimens more intensive than the CFM, it was decided to survey the US marketplace using the Health Canada smoking regimen of a 55 cc puff taken every 30 s for a 2 s duration with 100% of the ventilation holes blocked. Relatively little mainstream smoke chemistry data of US cigarettes has been published using this smoking regimen (Counts et al., 2005, Hammond and O’Conner, 2008). The purpose of this survey is to extend the published data available on US market products tested using the Health Canada smoking regimen, to provide a reliable means of estimating market means and medians of mainstream smoke constituents for the entire US cigarette market using a stratified statistical approach and to include the current industry reference cigarette, Kentucky 3R4F (3R4F), so that it could serve as a link to other studies.
Since this study was conducted the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published draft guidance for the tobacco industry on reporting harmful and potentially harmful constituents in tobacco products (FDA, 2012). Some of these smoke constituents are the same as in this study; however this study at the time utilized the list of smoke constituents recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for reporting and monitoring as detailed in WHO Technical Report 951 (WHO, 2008).
Section snippets
Market segmentation and sample selection
Over 3000 brand styles made up the US cigarette market in 2008 based on shipment to retailer data. Selection of brand styles for the survey was restricted to those with at least a 0.05% market share by volume to provide assurance that the products selected could be easily located and purchased. This resulted in a subset population of 207 market products from which the selected styles were chosen. These brand styles were segmented into 13 strata based on CFM “tar” category (“Full Flavor”,
Results
Results for all brand styles tested are presented in the appendix. Table 3 presents summary statistics for the US cigarette market. Means, medians, and associated 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using data from the 61 brand styles selected at random with weights for the number of brand styles per stratum of US market indicated in Table 1, while the ranges presented cover all 95 market products tested. Mean results for reference cigarette 3R4F are also presented in Table 3 for
Discussion
Constituent means and medians reported in Table 3 are generally similar but the ranges indicate great variation among the market products tested for most constituents. The mean constituent yields for 3R4F, as shown in Table 3, though somewhat lower than the market mean for many constituents, fall within the product ranges of the market. Significance testing of the mean yields for the non-menthol and menthol subpopulations presented in Table 4 showed few statistically significant differences.
Conclusion
This study, by means of stratifying the US cigarette market, provides summary statistics of the US cigarette market for selected analytes using the Health Canada smoking regimen. A temporal picture of the US market has been taken by means of stratifying the market based on “tar” categories and weighing the results based on the number of brand styles per strata. Another way of looking at the US market would be to stratify the market based on market share. Additional analyses found few
Conflict of interest statement
The authors would like to state that they have no competing interest and this research was funded by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
References (11)
- et al.
A Comparison of the mainstream smoke chemistry and mutagenicity of a representative sample of the US cigarette market with two kentucky reference cigarettes (K1R4F and K1R5F)
Food and Chemical Toxicology
(2000) - et al.
Smoke composition and predicting relationships for international commercial cigarettes smoked with three machine smoking conditions
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology
(2005) - et al.
An international literature survey of “IARC Group I carcinogens” reported in mainstream cigarette smoke
Food and Chemical Toxicology
(1997) - et al.
A comparison of the mutagenicity of mainstream cigarette smoke condensate from a representative sample of the US cigarette market with a kentucky reference cigarette (K1R4F)
Mutation Research
(1995) - et al.
An analysis of mainstream smoke chemistry of samples of the US cigarette market acquired between 1995 and 2000
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology
(2002)
Cited by (51)
Volatile organic compounds released in the mainstream smoke of flavor capsule cigarettes
2022, Environmental ResearchAcrolein and other toxicant exposures in relation to cardiovascular disease among marijuana and tobacco smokers in a longitudinal cohort of HIV-positive and negative adults
2021, EClinicalMedicineCitation Excerpt :However, few studies have measured smoke exposure biomarkers in exclusive marijuana smokers or dual marijuana-tobacco smokers compared with exclusive tobacco smokers and non-smokers [6,7]. Smoke from tobacco combustion contains several hundred chemicals including carcinogens and toxicants, tobacco alkaloids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) linked to cardiovascular and lung disease and other adverse health effects including cancers [8–13]. Among VOCs, the reactive aldehyde acrolein is notable for its toxicity and abundance in tobacco smoke [8,14,15].
Hydroquinone exposure alters the morphology of lymphoid organs in vaccinated C57Bl/6 mice
2020, Environmental PollutionComparative levels of carbonyl delivery between mass-market cigars and cigarettes
2019, Regulatory Toxicology and PharmacologyCitation Excerpt :While it is possible that the observed differences may derive from the tobacco blends used, the data suggests that the cigar type may have some influence on the carbonyl delivery and warrants further investigation. The carbonyl delivery data for the various cigar brands was examined and compared to that of both 3R4F reference cigarettes and marketed cigarettes (data published by Counts et al. (2005) and Bodnar et al. (2012)). Both cigars and cigarettes were smoked according to current industry standards based on product types, with cigars smoked according to CRM-64 and cigarettes smoked under both the ISO 3308 and ISO 20778 regimes.
Emission level of seven mainstream smoke toxicants from cigarette with variable tobacco leaf constituents
2019, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology