The migration of tobacco-specific nitrosamines into the saliva of chewers of nicotine-containing chewing gum.

In many countries nicotine-containing chewing gum (Nicorette) is used to help to break the habit of smoking. Saliva was collected every 5 min from chewers of nicotine chewing gum and analysed for tobacco-specific nitrosamines. Detectable levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines were found in all samples collected between 5 and 15 min after chewing had started. The levels of N'-nitrosonornicotine ranged from 0.4 to 19 ng/g of saliva and those for the sum of N'-nitrosoanatabine plus N'-nitrosoanabasine from 1.3 to 46 ng/g. 4-(N-methyl-N-nitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone was not detected in the saliva. The nicotine chewing gum was found to contain up to 380 ng tobacco-specific nitrosamines/g of chewing gum.