Antidepressant Helps Women Quit Smoking
Women who try
to quit smoking may have better luck with an antidepressant drug than nicotine
replacement therapy, a new study said.
Women generally
are not as successful as men at quitting smoking and nicotine replacement
therapy often is not as effective in women as it is in men.
A study by
David Gonzales of Oregon Health & Science University's Smoking Cessation
Center found, however, women fared equally as well as men in smoking cessation
efforts when taking the antidepressant Zyban, which also is sold under
the name Wellbutrin as an aid for quitting smoking. The manufacturer of
the drugs, GlaxoSmithKline, provided funding for the study.
"Based on this
study, I'd recommend that women take (Zyban) over any other medication,"
Gonzales told United Press International.
Gigi El-Bayoumi,
an associate professor in internal medicine at the George Washington University
medical center in Washington, who uses Zyban as a smoking cessation treatment
in her practice, told UPI her experience with the drug "would support these
conclusions."
Women who have
a history of seizure, bulimia or anorexia, however, should avoid the drug
as it is contraindicated for them, Gonzales said.
El-Bayoumi
said other studies have shown better results can be obtained by combining
some sort of nicotine replacement therapy with Zyban than by using either
one of them alone.
In the study,
which appears in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine,
432 men and women smokers who had received Zyban for seven weeks and abstained
from smoking during that time either continued on Zyban or were switched
to an inactive placebo for 45 additional weeks.
There were
no differences between the genders in quit rates at seven weeks or at one
year, Gonzales said. The patients were monitored for an additional year
after they stopped taking the medication and there still was no difference
between the sexes in how many continued to abstain from smoking, he noted.
Zyban may work
better in women than nicotine replacement therapy for several reasons,
Gonzales said.
"Women are
particularly more prone to depression as a group and you often find more
depression among women smokers than men smokers," so Zyban's antidepressant
effects may be particularly helpful to women trying to kick the habit,
he said.
Zyban reduces
the typical amount of weight gain experienced by people quitting smoking,
and it seemed to affect women more than in men in this study, Gonzales
said. This could make a big difference to women trying to quit because
"one of the biggest concerns women have when they quit smoking is gaining
weight ... and many women report they won't even attempt to quit because
of that," he said.
El-Bayoumi
said Zyban "can actually cause a little bit of weight loss" in some people
and "to be able to assure women that they won't gain weight ... is really
appealing to them."
Another effect
of Zyban that may be more favorable to women is that it alters the taste
of cigarettes. This may make the drug more effective than nicotine replacement
therapy because women derive more pleasure from the taste and smell of
cigarettes compared to men, Gonzales explained.
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