Pick-Me-Up

"Advertising supplies essential information," said the Mayor of New York last week to the National Advertising Federation. No adman who heard the statement was more pleased than swart, cigaret-smoking William Esty whose Manhattan agency prepares and places the advertising for Camel cigarets. Currently the "essential information" Mr. Esty is using to promote the sale of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s prime product is the untraditional statement that smoking is healthy.

"When you've used up your energy at work or play," read the Esty advertisements, "smoke a Camel and notice how soon you feel your flow of natural energy snap back ... a healthful and delightful release of natural, vibrant energy. . . . Basic discovery from a famous research laboratory."

If Camel advertising tells the truth, then smoking a cigaret is not the equivalent of driving a nail into one's coffin. Nor is cigaret smoking the deadly sin which many a smoker still secretly feels it to be.

Because some readers doubted the unorthodox claims of the Camel advertisement R. J. Reynolds Co. ordered a form answer prepared for rebuttal and explanation. Without telling skeptics more than it thought they should know, the company letter read as follows:

"The best scientific index of a person's energy, at any given time, is an analysis of the blood sugar concentration. . . . As far back as 1929, two eminent scientists in Sweden began a series of studies which have thrown new light on our knowledge of cigarets. They found, after experimenting with Camel cigarets over a considerable period of time, that the smoking of a Camel releases part of the sugar stored in the liver and muscles into the blood and the blood sugar concentration begins to rise rapidly, an average of 15 minutes after smoking. This effect continues for approximately half an hour, when the percentage of blood sugar again goes back to its previous level. However, the smoking of another Camel will again increase the blood sugar concentration. . .

". . . The work of these Swedish investigators was little known in this country until precisely the same findings were unearthed by two eminent physiologists in a leading American university. . . . They pointed out that the effect from the smoke was not only the same as eating in regard to increase of blood sugar, but also that, the symptoms of a low sugar concentration, fatigue and irritability, were temporarily relieved. . . . This 'lift' can be enjoyed as often as desired. . . ."

The "two eminent scientists in Sweden" referred to by the Reynolds Co. were Erik Lundberg and Stina Thyselius-Lundberg, medical experimentalists of the Royal Caroline Medico-Surgical Institute in Stockholm. They wanted to know whether a diabetic might smoke, and, if so, how much. In the experiments on healthy and diabetic subjects, they used Camel cigarets. As a scientific "control" the Lundbergs also used German denicotinized cigar-cigarets called Bad Toltz. Nicotine either in smoke or as a straight drug, as the Lundbergs found and other investigators already knew, stimulated the adrenal glands. The stimulated adrenals exuded adrenaline which released sugar, which in turn was burned in the form of additional energy.

How often the nicotine stimulation might be repeated, the Lundbergs did not say. In fact they regretted that they had only a few subjects to work with, and not many cigarets and cigar-cigarets to consume. As for their original purpose the Lundbergs agreed that some diabetics might smoke. They put their modest findings in the form of a paper published in Acta Medico, Scandinavica which went on library shelves and remained orgotten until dug out by the resourceful Mr. Esty.

Reynolds' "two eminent physiologists in a leading American university" were Howard Wilcox Haggard, associate professor of applied physiology at Yale, who has a propensity for alliteration as a popularizer of medicine* and one of his assistants named Leon A. Greenberg. After independent investigations with all types of U. S. cigarets Yalemen Haggard and Greenberg wrote in Science last February :

"Exactly what elements in the smoke exert the pleasurable physiological effects has never been determined, nor precisely what these effects are. Numerous theories have been advanced. But these theories merely show how little is known. . . . The answer we believe is nicotine. Smoking, we find, produces a definite, although temporary, increase in the concentration of blood sugar, and a corresponding increase in the rate of sugar combustion in the body. These effects certainly are due to the nicotine of the tobacco and they arise from the action of this alkaloid upon the adrenal glands. There can be little doubt that this is the source of at least a considerable part of the gratification from smoking. . . . Tobacco smoking, by inducing a hyperglycemia [excess of sugar in blood], may delay temporarily the development of hunger and relieve the fatigue and irritability that generally develop soon after the fasting level of blood sugar is reached. . . ."

Dr. Haggard was far from pleased when Mr. Esty pounced on his Science article as the foundation for a Camel advertisement. The article was, like the Lundbergs' work, simply a minuscule chip in a large scientific mosaic. Last week at Yale Dr. Haggard stormed as angrily as a quiet, logical man of science can: "Smoking may be harmful. Constant stimulation of the adrenals may be harmful. We don't know." Even so, the Reynolds company and any other tobacco manufacturer who cared to ape its advertising seemed to have plausible scientific grounds for claiming that an occasional cigaret between meals is a harmless pick-me-up.

*Howard Haggard books: Devils, Drugs, and Doctors; Mystery, Magic, and Medicine; The Lame, the Bait, and the Blind; The Science of Health and Disease.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.