Abstinence from smoking decreases habituation to food cues

Smokers typically gain weight after cessation due, in part, to increased caloric intake. This increase may be due to enhanced responding to sensory characteristics of foods resulting from a failure to habituate to food cues. To test this possibility, salivation to eight presentations of strawberry yogurt was assessed in male smokers and nonsmokers in two sessions. To test stimulus specificity, on the ninth trial, subjects were presented either more strawberry yogurt or lemon yogurt. Smokers were studied under nonabstinent or abstinent conditions. Salivation for nonabstinent smokers and nonsmokers decreased over presentations, while abstinent smokers showed little change. Nonabstinent smokers and nonsmokers recovered salivation when the new flavor yogurt was presented, and showed greater consumption on the final trial for the different versus same flavor yogurt. Nonabstinent smokers participated in additional within-session smoking sessions to control for withdrawal. Nonabstinent subjects were not different across smoking or not smoking sessions, suggesting the effects are not due to the acute effects of withdrawal.