Menthol May Pose Lower Lung-Cancer Risk, Vanderbilt Study Finds
Menthol Cigarette Ban May Aid Public Health
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Two Marlboro Menthol 72mm cigarettes, right, are photographed next to two regular size Marlboro Menthol cigarettes in New York.
Two Marlboro Menthol 72mm cigarettes, right, are photographed next to two regular size Marlboro Menthol cigarettes in New York. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Menthol cigarettes may pose a lower risk for lung cancer than unflavored versions, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University.
A seven-year study of almost 86,000 adults in 12 southern states found that menthol smokers also use fewer cigarettes a day than non-menthol smokers, said a report published online today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The researchers urged the Food and Drug Administration to include their findings in its analysis as the agency weighs whether to restrict U.S. menthol sales. A yearlong review by an FDA advisory panel concluded on March 18 that removing menthol cigarettes from the U.S. market would benefit public health. The advisers’ non-binding report must be submitted to the agency today. The FDA has no deadline for deciding whether to issue menthol rules.
An “undue emphasis on reduction of menthol relative to other cigarettes may distract from the ultimate health- prevention message that smoking of any cigarettes is injurious to health,” the researchers said in the report.
Menthol smokers of 20 or more cigarettes a day were 12 times more likely to get lung cancer than nonsmokers, the study found. Among non-menthol users who smoked the same amount, the odds of getting lung cancer were 21 times greater than nonsmokers’. The study was funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Among current smokers in the Vanderbilt study, 86 percent of blacks and 23 percent of whites used menthol cigarettes. Blacks who used menthol smoked an average of 1.6 fewer cigarettes a day than black non-menthol smokers, according to the report. White menthol smokers used an average of 1.8 fewer cigarettes daily than whites who smoked non-menthol.
46 Million Smokers
More than 20 percent of adults in the U.S., or 46 million people, smoke cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Smoking is the biggest cause of preventable death in the U.S., killing about 443,000 people a year.
The FDA advisory panel’s investigation, required by a 2009 law, found that menthol smokers don’t face more risks of tobacco-related disease than people who use regular cigarettes. The panel still concluded that menthol harms public health by increasing the overall number of smokers. Menthol is derived from mint leaves.
Lorillard Inc. (LO), the Greensboro, North Carolina-based maker of the top-selling menthol brand Newport, rose the most in more than two years on March 18 after the FDA advisers released a draft of their report and analysts said it probably won’t persuade the agency to ban menthol.
Menthol Market
Menthol products account for about 30 percent of the $85 billion in annual U.S. cigarette sales. Newport generates $5 billion a year in revenue for Lorillard, followed by Marlboro Menthol from Altria Group Inc. (MO)’s Philip Morris USA unit and Reynolds American Inc. (RAI)’s Camel Menthol, Kool and Salem, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Altria, Reynolds and Lorillard are the three biggest U.S. tobacco companies.
Vanderbilt’s menthol analysis was led by William Blot, a professor of medicine at the Nashville, Tennessee-based university and chief executive officer of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Maryland.
The researchers evaluated data from 85,806 adults enrolled in the Southern Community Cohort Study, a multiyear project by Vanderbilt, IEI and Nashville-based Meharry Medical College examining racial disparities in disease risk.
To contact the reporter on this story: Molly Peterson in Washington at mpeterson9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Adriel Bettelheim at abettelheim@bloomberg.net
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