About the Blog Author-John R. Hughes, MD

John R. Hughes, MD is Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Family Practice at the University of Vermont. Dr. Hughes is board certified in Psychiatry and Addiction Psychiatry. His major focus has been clinical research on tobacco use. Dr. Hughes received the Ove Ferno Award for research in nicotine dependence and the Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Health. He is a co-founder and past president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, and the Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence. Dr. Hughes has been Chair of the Vermont Tobacco Evaluation and Review Board which oversees VT’s multi-million dollar tobacco control programs. He has over 400 publications on nicotine and other drug dependencies and is one of the world’s most cited tobacco scientist. Dr. Hughes has been a consultant on tobacco policy to the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the White House. His current research is on how tobacco users and marijuana users stop or reduce use on their own, novel methods to prompt quit attempts by such users, whether smoking cessation reduces reward sensitivity and whether stopping e-cigarettes causes withdrawal. Dr Hughes has received fees from companies who develop smoking cessation devices, medications and services, from governmental and academic institutions, and from public and private organizations that promote tobacco control.

News

  • Natural History of Quit Attempts

    I have tried not to use this blog to promote my own research, but thought I would violate that rule to show you some interesting findings. We recently completed a study having smokers who plan to quit sometime in the next 3 months call in each night to report on smoking for 3 months (NTR 16:1190‐1198, 2014). We provided no treatment.
    Below are results from some randomly selected participants. Each column represents a day of the study and each row represents a single patient. The legend defines black, grey pixels and the “I” (the white pixel represent days that no change attempts going on). So for example, in just the first half of the study, subject number 204040 reduced smoking by > 50% on day 1, then did not try to change for 5...