Nicotine - The 'Sine Qua Non' Of Smokeless Tobacco

To determine the nicotine content and pH in various brands of gutkha, khaini and snuff.

Methods:

Various samples of smokeless tobacco included seven brands of gutkha, three brands of khaini and three brands of snuff obtained from local retail outlets in Mangalore city, Southern India. Blinding was done for all the brands. Nicotine was extracted from the samples by the method of Rai et al. Thereafter, the nicotine content was estimated by spectrophotometric method. Pure nicotine procured from Sigma Aldrich Chemicals (USA), was used as the standard. pH of each sample was determined using pH meter. Free unionized absorbable nicotine was estimated mathematically with Henderson- Hasselbach equation.

Results:

Samples of gutkha had very low nicotine content (5.6 mg/g) as compared to that of khaini (14.9 mg/g) and snuff (12.21mg/g). The highest mean pH value was observed in snuff (10.10) followed by khaini (8.9) and gutkha (7.85). Average total free nicotine levels for gutkha, khaini and snuff were obtained as 2.26 mg/g, 13.16 mg/g and 12.1 mg/g respectively.

Conclusion:

Previous studies have shown that the pH and freely available nicotine determine the addictive potential of smokeless tobacco. Our study results suggest , khaini and snuff has higher pH and free nicotine levels compared to gutkha. Thus, manipulation of pH could be considered as the primary means of nicotine dose control.