Section IV 
cigarettes. The mean total puff volume of the nicotine-maintained cigarette 
was significantly greater than that recorded for middle-tar cigarettes. There 
was no difference in mean total puff volume between low-tar cigarettes and 
nicotine-maintained cigarettes. 
RELATIVE YIELDS OF 
DIFFERENT BRANDS BY 
THE FTC TEST METHOD 
AND AMOUNT OF 
NICOTINE ABSORBED 
BY SMOKERS 
Ebert and colleagues (1983) undertook a study of 
76 smokers to determine correlations between levels of 
plasma nicotine and alveolar CO and the nicotine and 
CO yields of cigarettes. The correlations were found to be 
poor (Figures 1 and 2). For the 24 smokers of low-nicotine, 
low-tar cigarettes, nicotine levels were statistically lower 
for smokers of low-nicotine cigarettes, but the levels were only slightly lower 
and there was great overlap in individual plasma nicotine values; there was 
no difference in the mean alveolar CO levels between the low-nicotine 
smokers and smokers of regular cigarettes. 
Research by Benowitz and colleagues (1983) on 272 subjects about to 
enter a smoking treatment program revealed that the correlation between 
stated nicotine yield and actual blood cotinine levels was not significant. 
Furthermore, it was determined that nicotine concentration in the unburned 
tobacco and amount of nicotine in an unburned cigarette are not correlated 
positively with FTC-determined yields and that tobacco in low-yield cigarettes 
did not contain less nicotine than tobacco in higher yield cigarettes. 
Figure 1 
Relationship between plasma nicotine concentration in smokers and nicotine yield 
of cigarettes smoked 
80 I 
70 
£ 60 
w 
S 50 
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I 40 
u 
m 30 
E 
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iS 20 
10 
8 
Source: Ebert etal., 1983. 
• • 
• • 
>• 
• ^ 
• 
•••• 
• • 
• • 
• • 
J L 
J I I L 
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1, 
Nicotine Yield (mg) 
257 
