Publications by authors named "Marielle Brinkman"

Background: Nicotine forms (salt vs. freebase) and isomers (synthetic vs. tobacco-derived) are key characteristics of e-cigarettes that manufacturers manipulate, and "tobacco-free" claims may have served to attract new consumers and increase their intention to use.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Modern e-cigarettes that contain nicotine salts, which are smoother to inhale, raise concerns about potential abuse and addiction among users.
  • A study was conducted on young adult e-cigarette users to analyze how different nicotine forms, concentrations, and flavors impact their vaping experiences and behaviors.
  • Results showed that participants had different subjective experiences and nicotine uptake depending on whether they used salt-based or freebase nicotine e-liquids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Waterpipe tobacco (WPT) smoking is a public health concern, particularly among youth and young adults. The global spread of WPT use has surged because the introduction of pre-packaged flavored and sweetened WPT, which is widely marketed as a safer tobacco alternative. Besides flavorants and sugars, WPT additives include humectants, which enhance the moisture and sweetness of WPT, act as solvents for flavors, and impart smoothness to the smoke, thus increasing appeal to users.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Significance: Historically, tobacco product emissions testing using smoking machines has largely focused on combustible products, such as cigarettes and cigars. However, the popularity of newer products, such as electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), has complicated emissions testing because the products' mouth-end geometries do not readily seal with existing smoking and vaping machines. The demand for emissions data on popularly used products has led to inefficient and non-standardised solutions, such as laboratories making their geometry-specific custom adaptors and/or employing flexible tubing, for each unique mouth-end geometry tested.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Accurate characterization of tobacco product emissions is crucial for evaluating their health impacts, and a leak-tight seal is necessary for reliable data collection.
  • A prototype universal smoking machine adaptor (USMA) was developed to work with various tobacco products, demonstrating effective sealing with different shapes and sizes.
  • Testing showed that emissions measured with the USMA were consistent and precise, often outperforming other adaptors in repeatability and accuracy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: To measure nicotine delivery, vaping topography and subjective effects of current generations of disposable, cartridge-based and other types of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) among young adults.

Design, Setting, Participants: Observational, human laboratory assessment of e-cigarette use in Columbus, Ohio, USA (July 2020 to June 2021). Participants (n = 96, 60.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Some firms and marketers of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes; a type of electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS)) and refill liquids (e-liquids) have made claims about the safety of ingredients used in their products based on the term "GRAS or Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS). However, GRAS is a provision within the definition of a food additive under section 201(s) (21 U.S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Many oral nicotine pouches (ONPs) use synthetic nicotine, which includes a mix of S-nicotine and R-nicotine, but most tobacco-derived nicotine is primarily S-nicotine, making R-nicotine's effects mostly unknown.
  • In a study involving 18 adult smokers, participants tested ONPs with more than 99% S-nicotine and racemic nicotine, measuring nicotine levels in their blood and product appeal after usage.
  • Results showed that ONPs with over 99% S-nicotine had significantly higher nicotine concentrations in the blood, although perceived product liking and withdrawal relief were similar across both types of ONPs, with some reporting more adverse effects from the S-nicotine pouches.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Health warning labels have been found to increase awareness of the harmful effects of tobacco products. An eye tracking study was conducted to determine the optimal placement and type of a health warning label on tobacco waterpipes. Participants viewed images that contained one of (1) four waterpipes, (2) three different types of warning labels, (3) placed in three locations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The review discusses the difficulties of measuring and comparing emissions from various tobacco products like cigarettes, vapes, and hookah in controlled lab settings.
  • Key challenges include the variability of smoking/vaping machines, lack of standard adaptors, and puffing protocols that don't mimic real use.
  • The authors also highlight issues with analyzing the emissions and propose two methods for monitoring toxicants, while cautioning that focusing on relative exposure can overlook the actual harm of new products.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Tobacco products are evolving at a pace that has outstripped tobacco control, leading to a high prevalence of tobacco use in the population. Researchers have been tirelessly developing suitable techniques to assess these products' emissions, toxicity, and public health impact. The nonclinical testing of tobacco products to assess the chemical profile of emissions is needed for evidence-based regulations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers will use a double-blinded, randomized design with 66 young adult e-cigarette users and 66 older adult smokers to test the effects of various nicotine concentrations in e-liquids.
  • * The findings will help the FDA establish nicotine product standards that minimize youth appeal, providing evidence for a minimum threshold of free-base nicotine in e-liquids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In this commentary, we discuss the concerning prevalence of cannabis use among young people who use e-cigarettes. National data in the U.S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued proposed product standards banning menthol as a characterising flavour in cigarettes and cigars. The public health benefits of these product standards may be attenuated by the role of plausible substitutes in the marketplace. Therefore, the present study examined the addiction potential of plausible combustible menthol alternatives compared with usual brand menthol cigarettes (UBMC).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: In 2017, the e-cigarette brand, blu, released advertisements featuring large, boxed, positively-framed messages. These messages mimicked the format of FDA-mandated warnings that would appear on e-cigarette advertisements in the United States in 2018. We compared attention to blu's parody warnings and FDA-mandated warning appearing on blu advertisements.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Waterpipe (WP) smoking has rapidly grown in popularity in the United States and other Western countries with the fastest uptake among younger individuals. This growth has been encouraged by the misperception that WP smoke is harmless or less harmful than cigarette smoke. To better understand how WP affects the health of young people, we conducted a narrative review of the literature focusing on the adverse health effects of WP smoking in adolescents and younger adults.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Health warning messages could be an effective means of communicating the health risks associated with waterpipe (WP) smoking. The objective of this study was to select a message that conveyed the risks associated with WP smoking.

Methods: A mixed-methods approach was used to explore the effectiveness of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) mandated message, and others, among young adults using focus groups and surveys.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

There is a paucity of data on how gene expression enables identification of individuals who are at risk of exposure to carcinogens from e-cigarette (e-cig) vaping; and how human vaping behaviors modify these exposures. This pilot study aimed to identify genes regulated from acute exposure to e-cig using RT-qPCR. Three subjects (2M and 1F) made three visits to the lab (n = 9 visits); buccal and blood samples were collected before and immediately after scripted vaping 20 puffs (n = 18 samples); vaping topography data were collected in each session.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Flavourants and humectants in waterpipe tobacco (WT) increase product appeal. Removal of these constituents, however, is associated with increased intensity of WT puffing, likely due to reduced nicotine delivery efficiency. To clarify the potential public health outcomes of restrictions on flavourants or humectants in WT, we evaluated the effects of these constituents on puffing behaviours, biomarkers of exposure and subjective effects among adults with high versus low WT dependence.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The purpose of this study was to select a health warning message location on a waterpipe (WP) that both attracted visual attention and conveyed the risks associated with WP smoking. During June through November 2019, we conducted a within-subjects randomized experiment (N = 74) using eye tracking equipment to examine visual attention to 3 placements of a health warning on the WP (stem, water bowl, hose). We asked young adult ever WP users 3 questions about WP harm perceptions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: The present study examined how the lack of characterising flavours and low levels of humectants may affect users' waterpipe tobacco (WT) smoking topography, subjective effects, toxicant exposure and intentions for continued use.

Methods: 89 WT smokers completed four ad libitum smoking sessions (characterising flavor/high humectant (+F+H); characterising flavor/low humectant (+F-H); no characterising flavor/high humectant (-F+H); no characterising flavor/low humectant (-F-H)) in a randomised cross-over design. WT was commercially available; same brand but nicotine levels were not held constant.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF