Increased nasal patency caused by smoking and contraction of isolated human nasal mucosa.
In this study, we investigated the effects of smoking and nicotine, an important constituent of cigarettes, on the nasal patency using acoustic rhinometry (AR) and an in vitro bioassay technique. In the AR study, the nasal cavity volume of volunteers classified into two groups, smoking and nicotine chewing gum groups, was measured. The nasal cavity volumes immediately after smoking and 5 minutes after smoking significantly increased compared with that before smoking (P < 0.05), whereas the nasal cavity volume after chewing a nicotine gum was unchanged compared with that before chewing the gum. An in vitro study showed significant nicotine-induced contraction of the human nasal mucosa (50.2 +/- 14.0% noradrenaline-induced contraction: n = 10). The threshold nicotine level that can induce human nasal mucosa contraction was 3.0 x 10(-7) M. Prazosin (10(-6) M) inhibited nicotine-induced contraction incompletely (20.5 +/- 7.5% of noradrenaline-induced contraction n = 5). These results indicate that smoking increases nasal patency and that nicotine induces contraction of the human nasal mucosa. The nicotine-induced contraction is likely mediated, at least in part by alpha1-adrenoceptors.[1]References
- Increased nasal patency caused by smoking and contraction of isolated human nasal mucosa. Maeda, Y., Okita, W., Ichimura, K. Rhinology. (2004) [Pubmed]
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