[NYAPRS Enews] MHW: NIDA Awards Grants To Address Smoking By People w Psych Disabilities

[Matt Canuteson]

NYAPRS Note: The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has awarded two
research grants to address smoking cessation in people with psychiatric
disabilities.

$250,000 in federal stimulus funds was awarded to Jill M. Williams, M.D.
of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)-Robert
Wood Johnson Medical School. 

This is important research because in the general population smoking is
prevalent at about 28 to 29 percent, compared to the population with
schizophrenia which is about 80 to 90 percent. The high levels of
smoking by members of our community is one of the reasons that people
with psychiatric disabilities die about 25 years earlier than the
general population.

 

NIDA Grants To Address Smoking Cessation In SMI Population

Mental Health Weekly July 27th 2009

 

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has awarded two research
grants to address smoking cessation in people with schizophrenia.

 

Funding support for the project is being provided by federal stimulus
funds.

 

A two-year grant of $250,000 was awarded to Jill M. Williams, M.D.,
associate professor of psychiatry and director of the division of
addiction psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New
Jersey (UMDNJ)-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Williams and her team
will examine the nicotine nasal spray, Nicotrol NS.

 

S. Hossein Fatemi, M.D., Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, pharmacological
and neuroscience at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, received
a second grant of $416,000 per year for two years, to study varenicline
(Chantix), an FDA-approved smoking cessation medication, in people who
have schizophrenia.

 

"We're making great progress in reducing tobacco use in this country,
but it's hard to reach this population," Cindy Miner, Ph.D., deputy
director at the NIDA Office of Science Policy and Communications, at the
National Institutes of Health, told MHW. "We understand very little
about why they're smoking at such a higher rate."

 

In the general population, smoking is prevalent at about 28 to 29
percent, compared to the population with schizophrenia, which is about
80 to 90 percent, Miner said. Miner pointed to the wellknown study
released by the National Association of State Mental Health Program
Directors (NASMHPD), which revealed that the population with serious
mental illness (SMI) dies at about 25 years earlier than their peers.

 

"The NASMHPD study made for a greater awareness on our radar screen,"
she said. Miner also noted that people with schizophrenia have a 50
percent higher risk of death from cancer compared to people in the
general population. That conclusion was revealed in a new study
published in the August issue of Cancer. The study authors suggest that
extra efforts should be made to improve cancer prevention and early
detection in patients with schizophrenia.

 

"We know it's very difficult for people with schizophrenia to quit
smoking," said Miner. "They are about one-half as likely to quit smoking
as people who do not have schizophrenia."

Smoking Cessation Medication Study

Fatemi told MHW that he will use the grant to conduct a doubleblind,
randomized-controlled study of varenicline (Chantix) - an FDA approved
smoking cessation medication that has been on the market for about two
or three years, he said. "We are very thankful to NIH for giving us this
grant," Fatemi told MHW. "The goal is to determine whether varenicline
can work as well in patients with schizophrenia as it does in patients
who don't have a mental illness," Fatemi said. The study will address
the safety and efficacy of the medication, he noted.

 

"Varenicline works quite well in the general population without mental
illness and has greater efficacy when compared with bupropion
(Wellbutrin, Zyban)," he said.

 

Varenicline has been studied in the general population and patients with
other psychiatric disorders and was found to be safe, Fatemi added. "A
lot of the information we have is anecdotal," said Fatemi. "We want to
make sure the medication can do its job without causing side effects or
worsening the psychosis."

 

He and his colleagues plan to compare its tolerability to bupropion  and
placebo in a "careful, designated way," he said.

 

Williams conducted previous research on people with schizophrenia,
including one study which dealt with increasing levels of nicotine in
smokers with schizophrenia.

 

Williams was the lead author of a study, "A Case Series of Nicotine
Nasal Spray in the Treatment of Tobacco Dependence Among Patients with
Schizophrenia," which appeared in the September 2004 issue of
Psychiatric Services. The study found that the nicotine nasal spray
appeared to be well tolerated in smokers with schizophrenia.

 

The product, Nicotral, has been around for a long time, she said. "We're
revisiting an old product that may be effective in people with
schizophrenia," said Williams.

 

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