The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday cleared Philip Morris-owned Zyn nicotine pouches to be marketed as less harmful than cigarettes, giving the tobacco giant a major regulatory win as the Trump administration loosens restrictions on nicotine products.
The decision, first reported by Axios, allows 20 Zyn products to carry a modified-risk claim saying that switching from cigarettes to Zyn lowers the risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
Zyn pouches contain nicotine but not tobacco. They are placed between a user’s gum and lip and have surged in popularity among conservatives, tech workers and others who promote them as a cleaner alternative to cigarettes and chewing tobacco or a productivity aid.
…I mean, are they wrong?
Nicotine itself causes issues. It might be less alone than with the other components of tobacco but saying it’s safer than cigarettes is a stretch from current data imo.
Anecdotally a person I know is attempting to wean off and each decrease in number of zins has measurably improved their heart rate and sleep.
saying it’s safer than cigarettes is a stretch from current data imo.
Depends on how you phrase it. I would be willing to bet it’s safe in regards to carcinogens, most of which in cigarettes are byproducts of additives and from combustion. It’s probably safer than dipping in that respect as well.
Nicotine is bad for your cardiovascular system, but it’s not classified as a carcinogen by itself.
The evidence shows that nicotine promotes the development of numerous forms of cancer. Also a lot of the data on this is out dated as it comes from studies done years ago on user groups that were using products that are now significantly more potent. There is also evidence of issues with the liver, and numerous other deleterious effects on the organs that have a growing body of data showing stronger, and stronger, correlations with nicotine use.
https://atm.amegroups.org/article/view/119609/html
2023 review found most animal tumor-initiation studies did not show nicotine increasing spontaneous tumor initiation, while tumor-progression results were inconsistent and hard to generalize
Smokeless tobacco is not “safe”, it’s addictive, may have oral/cardiovascular concerns, and long term data is limited, but cancer risk is likely far lower than chewing tobacco. Nicotine alone os not strongly established as cancer causing in humans, but biologically suspicious enough that “harmless” would be too strong.
There’s a reason the FDA is allowing Zyn to say there’s a difference now with “Using ZYN instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis”. People would do better to switch to Zyn than smoke or use dip. They’d do even better quitting, but people should understand there’s much higher risk with smoking and using chewing tobacco.
I think mouth cancer risk is increased even
No it’s not. Nicotine by itself is about as harmful as caffeine.
You are wrong
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4553893/
where as there is growing evidence caffeine actually reduces the chances of getting cancer
To our knowledge, there are no relevant study in humans on carcinogenic effects from pure nicotine including products, such as NRT and e-cigarettes
And
At present, it is not possible to draw a conclusion whether nicotine itself may act as a complete carcinogen
I mean it really is safer than smoking. I use a different brand than zyn and from experience I can say it’s not really that bad for you, long as you switch up where you keep it in your mouth and stay away from fruity and citrus flavors… They tend to put citric acid in them and it seriously fucks your teeth.
