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.
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://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4553893/
That study is proposing that nicotine may modify the effect of cancer growth but did not conclude that nicotine itself is a carcinogen.
And that is exactly what I said, that evidence shows nicotine promotes development of caner.
This also is ignoring the deleterious effects on the organs that aren’t cancer based.
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.