Mobile technology may help curb nicotine addiction, new study shows - Chicago Tribune

Quitting smoking is an inside job, but mobile technology may help, say researchers at Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh, who recently published a nicotine-addiction study.

Their findings, which used mobile technology and new software to track smokers as they tried to quit, offered insights into why some tobacco smokers quit the habit on the first try while others have to quit repeatedly, or never succeed.

The study, published this month in Prevention Science, "demonstrates the potential for technology to help us figure out the processes involved in withdrawal," said Stephanie Lanza, scientific director of The Methodology Center at Penn State and a lead author on the study.

Researchers tracked 304 participants, all of whom were all long-time smokers and consumed at least a pack a day on average. During the six-week study, subjects used handheld computers and smart phones to reply to surveys sent to them randomly five times a day. They answered questions about their emotional state, urge to smoke and whether they were smoking.

New software helped scientists analyze several variables that fluctuated over time, such as intensity of urge and emotional state. "Without software like this, we would have no idea how to look at these data," said Lanza.

The results of the study, which was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, mirror how tough nicotine addiction is to break, said Lanza, who describes the process of nicotine withdrawal and addiction as a complex stew of biological, social and psychological factors.

One finding was that those smokers who relapsed quickly did not have their cravings drop the way they did in the group that was successful, she said. In the successful group, she said, cravings dropped by half in the first two weeks.

"Our hope is that this kind of software paired with data gathered through mobile devices will give tobacco researchers new information on how to create interventions that are personally tailored, since everyone's withdrawal is different," said Lanza, adding that the technology methods could be used to study other addictions.

"The bright spot to me is that research is shifting to help us understand how to break this addiction," said Lanza.

mjameson@tribune.com or 407-420-5158

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