Composition to reduce or quit smoking addiction

Abstract

A method and composition to help persons reduce or quit smoking is disclosed, employing raw tobacco leaves, or tobacco fluid extract, or food grade tobacco like flavor and aroma, and Antioxidants, with or without and SAMe and caffeine. All ingredients can be in a micro-powdered or liquid form, for buccal administration. The composition can be in a tablet or capsule that is intended to be slowly sucked and dissolved in the mouth, and that delivers the nicotine, caffeine or SAMe, proved to be effective in alleviating smoking withdrawal symptoms. The composition can also be embedded inside a soft squeezable plastic cigarette for simulated smoking, providing additional periodic doses of nicotine, caffeine and SAMe to satisfy cravings for cigarettes.

Description

[0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 261,541, filed Sep. 30, 2002, which claims the benefit of and priority to European Patent Application No. EP 01125054.5, filed in the European Patent Office on Oct. 22, 2001. all applications are incorporated by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD [0002] The present invention relates to the technical sector of the production of substances useful to help persons to reduce or quit smoking. In particular, it concerns a novel composition containing tobacco or tobacco fluid extract or food grade, tobacco like flavor and aroma with antioxidants with or without caffeine and / or SAMe and / or brewed or soluble caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee. BACKGROUND ART [0003] Tobacco is an annual plant with a long fibrous root, stem erect, round, hairy and viscid. It branches near the top and is from 3 to 6 feet high. Leaves are large, numerous, alternate, sessile, somewhat decurrent, ovate, lanceolate, pointed, entire, slightly v...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0045] The main object of the present invention aims to help smokers to reduce slowly tobacco smoking addiction and thereby abate smoking related harm. Moreover the object is based upon the idea that since nicotine is the chemical reinforcement of the smoking habit, it might be possible to produce a chewable tablet containing Tobacco-Antioxidants in a micro-powdered form, which would satisfy the smoker's craving for nicotine without exposure to harmful ingredients developed by the tobacco combustion.

[0046] An object of the present invention is to slowly substitute tobacco smoking with a Tobacco-Antioxidants formulation to be ingested. The underlying reasoning is simple and correct; it is the smoke from a cigarette, not the nicotine that causes disease. Yet, Tobacco-Antioxidants tablets easily provide enough nicotine to satisfy smokers craving and pose a minimal health risk to anyone. This risk is estimated to be less than two percent as large as the risk associated with smoking. And as fringe benefits, the Tobacco-Antioxidants formulation poses no risk to anyone else and its use is sufficiently discreet that the user will not be ostracized in any way.

[0047] Accordingly, the objective which underlines this invention is to provide a Tobacco-Antioxidants composition and Tobacco-Antioxidants composition with or without brewed and / or soluble caffeinated and / or decaffeinated coffee (all compositions collectively referred to as Tobacco-Antioxidants composition hereinafter) which in a relatively short time will induce the smoker to smoke less due to the strong aversion to smoking provoked by the good feeling and satisfaction in chewing the present composition. The non-toxic components of this invention produce a strong satisfactory nicotine effect, while helping to reduce the harm caused by tobacco smoke. The Tobacco-Antioxidants composition of the present invention is a major advance in treatment for smokers. It reduces withdrawal effects, enhances success in short-term cessation, reduces relapse if use is not curtailed too soon, and roughly doubles long-term success rates compared with placebo and various psychological methods. The aroma and tobacco flavors included in the formulation produce a pleasant and desired fragrance and have a sweeter spicy, wood-oriental, Virginia hay tobacco notes and taste, with much more body and much more natural tobacco-like aroma prior and during chewing or ingesting the formulation of the present invention. Certain compositions of the present invention can also include a brewed and / or soluble coffee flavor and / or taste.

Problems solved by technology

Tobacco, if used as snuff, causes violent sneezing and also a copious secretion of mucous.

In large doses it produces nausea, vomiting, sweats and great muscular weakness.

The alkaloid nicotine in high doses is a virulent poison, producing great disturbance in the digestive and circulatory organs.

In addition to the medical problems, there are also restrictions now relating to smoking in the work place and in public areas, such as restaurants and shopping centers, which also require smokers to exercise considerably greater control over their smoking habits.

However, many people find it virtually impossible, especially in the case of cigarettes, to control their tobacco habit.

There was no known drug that permitted the users to control effectively their craving or use of tobacco.

While dilation of the blood vessels in the brain occurs immediately after cigarette smoking, chronic smoking slows the overall reduction in cerebral blood flow.

It also causes vasoconstriction of the blood vessels in other areas of the body, and infuses the red blood cells with carbon monoxide, greatly reducing their oxygen-carrying capacity.

Eventually it affects the lungs and hinders breathing, which depletes energy and strength.

Although the effects of cigarette smoking on a variety of diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular illness and emphysema, have been well publicized, the effect of smoking on nutrients in the body are less widely known.

One pack of cigarettes yields 10 times the amount of cadmium the body is capable of assimilating, thus weakening the immune system.

It has been proven that, the major damage to smokers is caused by residues of tar transferred by the inhaled smoke to the lungs, causing tar deposits on the lungs.

These deposits are major causes for lung cancer and other incurable damages.

The partial oxidation that occurs during smoking to the paper or other cellulose parts in the cigarettes results in a large proportion of carbon monoxide in the released cigarette smoke.

When the smoke is being inhaled these quantities of carbon monoxide enter the bloodstream, thus causing a reduction of available oxygen in the blood, and hence great disturbances to the heart function.

Psychological needs that are satisfied by the steps involved in smoking are very basic and infantile, including ingesting, sucking, grasping, and repetitive hand to mouth activity.

They eat more and gain weight, “do not know what to do” with their hands, and experience extreme psychological discomfort manifested as irritably.

Not only have such preparations proved unpopular because of the lack of desire on the part of the individual deliberately to make himself ill to cure the habit, they have also proved ineffective to many instances even when faithfully employed.

But by the time a cigarette is finished, the nicotine level in the blood begins to plunge, causing the body to urgently signal its need for more.

Smoking a cigarette every half an hour or so keeps nicotine levels elevated, but the smoker pays a devastating price.

Withdrawal from nicotine brings about unpleasant sensation likened to withdrawal from any drug.

This causes a momentary “lift”, it is followed, however, by a too rapid movement of glucose out of the blood after the “danger” is past, and the result is a feeling of fatigue.

Fatigue causes anxiety, self-pity, low grade dissatisfaction and general discomfort, which, for a smoker is a signal to reach for the pickup in a cigarette.

At the same time, the red blood cells are obstructed for their mission of carrying oxygen to the heart and brain because of the carbon monoxide and other gases in the cigarette smoke.

In fact, “as much as 20% of the blood pushed around by the heart of the smokers is not working so far as carrying oxygen is concerned.

Since the heart has the highest oxygen requirement per unit weight of any tissue, any change in the supply of oxygen could affect the heart first, and thereby increase the risk of an attack for the smoker”.

Since nicotine is addictive, since the body requires that a certain level must be maintained in the blood-stream, the smoker becomes uncomfortable when he or she has gone beyond the normal time for another dose.

Switching to low-nicotine cigarette supply causes problem smokers to smoke more; zero-nicotine cigarettes are usually rejected.

Many campaigners for the elimination of cigarette smoking have not realized that people would lose these benefits, as well as the health risks.

While nicotine's effect on the neurotransmission of serotonin, and the receptors of the presynaptic membrane are poorly understood; it is believed that the abstinence from tobacco and nicotine results in the re-up-take and accumulation of serotonin in these neurohumoral pathways, that when the release of which is not stimulated by nicotine, results in the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.

Pharmacological therapies are known to help, those addicted to nicotine, but most of the therapies are unsatisfactory because they have short term effect as well as numerous undesirable side-effects.

Nicotine readily crosses the placental barrier as well, resulting in fetal exposure to the compound when women smoke during pregnancy.

During surveys conducted in industrialized nations, most participating smokers expressed a desire to give up tobacco and in many cases, revealed that they had tried to do so, with the first few attempts commonly ending in relapse.

The major cause of poor nutritional value is due to a low content or unavailability of one or more of the indispensable amino acids.

The problem with nicotine substitution therapy involves the administration of the psychoactive constituent of tobacco indicates as a contributor to the diseases for which smoking is a risk factor.

Administering just nicotine as a substitute of smoking have not been successful because these methods do not recognize and address the two-prong “addiction” of smoking.

First, there are social and psychological reasons for smoking that must be initially overcome.

Secondly, there is the more powerful psychological than pharmacological reason (nicotine addiction) that must then be conquered.

However, modem beverages of many brands are purposely spiked with the drug.

We also know that the levels of folate and SAMe in the blood of many people are too low for their optimum health, mental and physical.

Unfortunately today it is considered normal to have a heart attack even at a young age.