March 2 1998

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Research by Adventist doctor Linda Ferry shows that smokers using the drug bupropion are twice as likely to quit smoking.

Ferry, associate professor at Loma Linda University in Riverside, California, began to study the link between nicotine and depression in 1990 and discovered that a third of smokers are depressed. She eventually found that the antidepressant bupropion is effective in helping smokers to quit.

Richard Hart, dean of the School of Public Health at Loma Linda, says Ferry's research has provided "a major new tool" in the battle to stop smoking. "About 420,000 die every year from smoking in the U.S., more than from any other cause of death. If we get the word out to use bupropion, up to 300,000 will not die this year."

More than 175,000 prescriptions have been issued for bupropion, sold under the brand name Zyban, since its approval by the Food and Drug Administration last July.