To quit or not: Vulnerability of women to smoking tobacco

Abstract

Tobacco smoking is currently on the rise among women, and can pose a greater health risk. In order to understand the nature of the increase in smoking prevalence among women, we focused on the vulnerability of women to smoking behaviors-smoking cessation or tobacco addiction-and performed a systematic review of the socioeconomic and intrinsic factors as well as tobacco ingredients that affect women's susceptibility to smoking tobacco. We observed that nicotine and other tobacco components including cocoa-relatives, licorice products, and menthol aggravate tobacco addiction in women rather than in men. Various genetic and epigenetic alterations in dopamine pathway and the pharmaco-kinetics and -dynamic factors of nicotine also showed potential evidences for high susceptibility to tobacco addiction in women. Therefore, we suggest systemic approaches to prevent tobacco smoking-related health risks, considering gene-environment-gender interaction.