What 37 pouch quitters' hearts did over 12 weeks

Past-month pouch use among US adults rose from 2.3% in 2023 to 4.2% in 2024. Chang 2026 · 15,340 US adults aged 19 to 65, Monitoring the Future panel Almost everything known about quitting nicotine comes from cigarette smokers. Pouches deliver nicotine without smoke, so the heart and blood pressure effects of quitting should look different, and until 2025 nobody had measured them.

Then a group in Linköping followed 37 snus and pouch users through 12 weeks of abstinence. Before the quit date they averaged 16 pouches a day. The team measured resting heart rate, blood pressure and weight at baseline and each week after.

What moved

Resting heart rate fell 5.7 bpm in the first week off nicotine. By weeks 8 to 12 it was back where it started. Diastolic pressure dipped 2.5 mmHg briefly. Systolic pressure went the other way and was 3.7 mmHg higher at week 12. Weight rose 1.8 kg by week 4. af Geijerstam 2025 · 37 snus and pouch quitters

That is a mixed picture, and the app shows it as one. Your heart rate card expects a fall in week one and says so. Your blood pressure card, if you log readings, tells you that the one study of pouch quitters saw systolic pressure rise, and that nobody knows yet whether it lasts.

How close is this to you

Closer than anything else. The participants used snus or pouches, not cigarettes, at about 16 a day. If you use fewer, expect smaller changes. If you have hypertension, the systolic finding is a reason to keep measuring after you quit and to tell your clinician you have stopped nicotine.

It is also 37 people in one country over 12 weeks, with no control group. Abrupt labels every prediction with that population and that number, so you can weigh it yourself.

What to do with it

Collect at least a week of baseline heart rate before your quit date, so the week-one fall has something to be measured against. If you own a blood pressure cuff, log a reading a week. Then watch.