Daily Doc: RJR, 1987, 1989: Levulinic Acid & Enhanced Nicotine Binding Capacity
Daily Doc: Levulinic Acid & Enhanced Nicotine Binding Capacity
Title: RJ Reynolds scientific report, Scientific Affairs Evaluation of Nicotine Levulinate as a Tobacco Ingredient
RJR, 1987, 1989
Bates #: 508295794, 506826449
30 Aug 1999
The following document was first revealed by Greg Conolly of Massachusetts Tobacco Control at a press conference in St. Paul, MN in 1998. It is an RJ Reynolds scientific report from 1989 describes how RJR's additives nicotine levulinate and levulinic acid enhance the binding capacity of nicotine in the brain by 20-50%. Other documents show RJR added these chemicals to Winston ultra lights.
CITATION
Type of Document: RJ Reynolds scientific report
Authors: Patrick M. Lipello and Key G. Fernandes
Date: Sept. 25, 1989
Starting Bates No. 508295794
Total No. of Pages: 27
Site: RJ Reynolds Document Site http://www.rjrtdocs.com
URLs: [Note: I think I have found a way to bookmark documents on the RJR site now. I hope these URLs work--if not, this document can be found by entering as combined text the phrase 'Enhancement of Nicotine Binding to Nicotinic Receptors.')
This is a lengthy report, so I will give you the most effective pages.
The first page contains a succinct summary of the research: http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=0
QUOTES
Quotes from the Summary:
Nicotine levulinate and levulinic acid significantly increased the amount of L[3H] nicotine bound to nicotinic receptors in rat brain tissue. The observed increase ranged from 20-50%, with a mean value of around 30%...According to the model, levulinic acid binds to a...class of low-affinity receptors and increases the affinity of these receptors to nicotine.
Page 20: A chart, titled Figure 2: Levulinic Acid Enhancement of [3H]-Nicotine Binding to Nicotinic Receptors in Rat Brain (page is
Bates No. 508295813 -- this is useful as an overhead at presentations to demonstrate what this study is about): http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=20
Page 23: Figure 5 - Theoretical Model for Levulinate Enhancement of Nicotine Binding to Nicotine Receptors (the left pie chart represents nicotine binding without levulinate, the right pie shows the amount of enhancement of binding with the additive -- also makes a good overhead for presentations) (Page is
Bates No. 508295817): http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=23
The following document shows that RJR scientific affairs evaluated nicotine levulinate as a cigarette additive in their Winston Ultra Light cigarettes:
CITATION
Type of Document: Interoffice Memorandum
Title: Scientific Affairs Evaluation of Nicotine Levulinate as a Tobacco Ingredient
Author: Dr. Scott Appleton
Recipient: Jerry Lawson
Date: 01/09/1987
Bates No. 506826449
No. of Pages: 1
URL: http://www.rjrtdocs.com/imaging.jsp?SIZE=774&LOCATION=0 (if this can also be found by entering the Bates No. in the document ID field).
QUOTES
Public Affiars approves the evaluation of Winston Ultra low tar cigarettes containing up to 5% nicotine levulinate by focus groups providing each panel member smokes only one (1) cigarette.
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