A new randomized controlled study put five nicotine products head to head — cigarettes, heated tobacco, e-cigarettes, snus and tobacco-free nicotine pouches — and measured how fast each one actually delivers nicotine to the bloodstream. The short version: the inhaled products spike in minutes, the oral products don't, and the study's authors argue that speed gap is what drives how addictive a product feels.

The paper ran in Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio) on September 16, 2026, open access, under the title "Nicotine pharmacokinetics and abuse liability of commercially available tobacco products." It's a registered clinical trial (ChiCTR2500104299), reviewed by an ethics committee at a Shanghai hospital, with adult smokers as participants.

What the study found

After controlled product use, the two formats behaved very differently:

• Inhaled products (cigarettes, heated tobacco, e-cigarettes): nicotine peaked in the blood within 5–6 minutes.
• Oral products (snus, nicotine pouches): absorption was delayed, with peak concentrations at 36–39 minutes and a lower maximum level.

Total nicotine exposure over the session was similar for cigarettes and the tobacco-containing oral products — but cigarettes delivered a significantly higher early nicotine boost. That early spike, not the total dose, is what the authors tie to abuse liability.

The subjective data lined up with the blood data: participants rated the inhaled products higher on liking and craving-reduction measures, and those scores correlated with how fast nicotine arrived.

The pouch angle

For nicotine pouches specifically, the finding cuts both ways. Slower, lower-peak delivery means pouches scored lower on the measures that predict dependence — which supports the argument, already embedded in FDA's modified-risk treatment of ZYN, that oral nicotine is a meaningfully different proposition from smoking. But it also means a pouch user chasing the fast hit a cigarette delivers may use more, or stronger, pouches to compensate — the same dynamic behind the industry's sprint toward 9–11 mg formats this year.

If you're comparing strengths across brands, PouchFinder lists the full strength range on the market.

What to keep in mind

The study comes from authors at a Shanghai tobacco-product research institute (corresponding emails sit on a sh.tobacco.com.cn domain) plus a Shanghai university and hospital. The paper itself states the research received no external funding and describes the institute authors as researchers whose funding source had no role in the work — but a tobacco-industry-affiliated lab concluding that industry-favored products have a "lower-risk profile" deserves that context. The published abstract also doesn't state the sample size, and the design captures acute single-use responses in adult smokers, not long-term use patterns or independent users of oral products.

SOURCES

• Fei, Yan et al., "Nicotine pharmacokinetics and abuse liability of commercially available tobacco products: an open-label, randomized, controlled study," Scientific Reports, published Sep 16, 2026 (open access): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-70993-6
• Trial registration: ChiCTR2500104299 (registered Jun 13, 2025)