Giving Up Cigarettes: Drugs That Raise the Odds
A new drug that fights cigarette addiction more than triples a person's odds of quitting, compared with using no drugs at all, according to a review of research on the drug. Meantime, another study found that certain antidepressants also make it easier to quit.
Researchers at the Cochrane Collaboration Tobacco Addiction Group–part of the respected nonprofit Cochrane Collaboration, which evaluates health treatments–looked at existing studies of varenicline, which has been sold by prescription under the brand name Chantix in the United States since last year. The drug is believed to block a brain receptor for nicotine, so the pleasure of smoking is blunted, while also reducing cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Their review of all the data found that users of varenicline were over three times as likely to have stayed away from cigarettes after a year as people who received a placebo.
A separate review of studies on antidepressants, also by Cochrane researchers, found that while the drugs bupropion and nortriptyline roughly double the chances that users quit smoking for the long haul compared with a dummy pill, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac do not. Bupropion is sold under the brand names Wellbutrin and Zyban, and nortriptyline under the names Aventyl and Pamelor.
There isn't enough information yet to evaluate how varenicline or the antidepressants stack up against nicotine replacement therapy, including gum or the patch.
The key, says Lindsay Stead, the cocoordinator of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group Review and a coauthor of both studies, is that there's no magic bullet that will work for everyone–and it's still hard to quit. "Don't give up on giving it up," she says. "If one thing doesn't work, try something else."
Both surveys are published in the Cochrane Library.