Joseph Hart 9 April 2025

 

Researchers at Duke School of Medicine have made a startling discovery about nicotine pouches. Using chemical analysis, Sairam Jabba and Sven-Eric Jordt discovered that popular brands like Zyn, VELO and On! contain artificial sweeteners!

Sure, instead of using Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry to identify the sweeteners, they could have just looked at the ingredients on the box. But who’s getting a research grant for that?

Anyway, let’s take a look at the paper.

The paper

The Duke Chronicle recently published a piece about a paper titled, Artificial Sweeteners in US-Marketed Oral Nicotine Pouch Products: Correlation with Nicotine Contents and Effects on Product Preference. The research itself was published late last year, but to channel Keir Starmer, it only recently came across my desk.

It’s hard to really understand the purpose of this paper, aside from being yet another vehicle calling for strict nicotine pouch regulations. The non-revelation that pouches contain the ingredients their manufacturers state they contain suggests that, at worst, the research is a bit redundant. However, it’s far worse than that.

Double trouble

Tobacco control consistently tries to find new attack vectors for harm reduction products. This paper combines two bête noires for the price of one: nicotine and sugar. The forever war being waged against both products is bad enough, but if public health figures out that it can dupe the public into thinking that nicotine pouches are awash with sugar, it will surely usher in a golden age of articles claiming that pouches made you fat.

Researchers conducting chemical analysis on nicotine pouches in a lab.

Why pouches use flavourings

The paper is a masterclass in motivated reasoning. Too often, researchers come into the process with several a priori beliefs that they struggle to mask. In this case, the preconception is that all decisions about formulation of a tobacco-related product are attempts to capture the youth market.

The idea here is that because pouches contain sugar additives, it’s a clear sign that they are tailor made for young populations. I think the reader is meant to ignore the fact that humans like sweet things, especially for their ability to mask bitter tastes, like tobacco.

If sweeteners and flavourings were regulated out of nicotine pouches, it would reduce youth use. Of course, it would also reduce adult use because the product would be unpalatable to everyone.

In the Duke article, they share that “Jabba noted that people are conditioned at an early age to find sweeteners and flavors appealing.” This is a remarkable statement from a scientist, and just goes to show how far the brain rot in tobacco control has advanced.

The implication that young people are influenced or trained to like sugary tastes ignores the evolutionary basis for preferences for sweet foods. Breastmilk and fruits are both energy-dense sources of nutrition for infants. Both contain sugars. This phenomena is innate and not part of shadowy conspiracy theory to hook kids. I thought the blank state theory had gone out of fashion about 25 years ago, but it seems that it persists.

Another strange part of the article is the big song and dance made of the fact that even unflavoured pouches contain sweeteners. Again, where Jabbar and company see a conspiracy, it’s simply neutralising a bitter tasting product to make it accessible to everyone. Additionally, I’m not sure if the absence of flavour should automatically imply there should be an absence of sweeteners.

Final thoughts

The use of flavourings or sweeteners in nicotine pouches should not be controversial. People use pouches for their mild stimulant qualities. If they taste bad, they would be less appealing to adults.

The authors of this paper struggle to get their head around this basic fact of marketing a product. Yes, some pouch manufacturers could make a product with no sweeteners, but they would get destroyed by any business who deigned to make a product that people actually like. It would be as insane as making apple pie and lemonade without sugar and being confused when your company goes out of business.