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NEW HAVEN — Menthol may increase smoking and addiction to cigarettes, according to a study by researchers at Yale University and the University of Connecticut.

The way menthol does this is by reducing the body’s response to irritants in the smoke, according to a press release issued by Yale.

In what they called a potent effect, researchers found that airway receptors in mice who inhaled cigarette smoke lost the ability to trigger sensations of irritation, which in people will trigger “smoker’s cough” and other effects.

“By suppressing the sensation of irritation, menthol may make smoke inhalation easier to tolerate, and therefore promote nicotine addiction and smoking-related illness,” said author Sven-Eric Jordt, associate professor of pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine, in the release.

“Studies indicate that most young people smoke menthol cigarettes,” Jordt said. “So they are being exposed to higher levels of nicotine and other toxic substances at a young age, which may lead to rapid addiction and, ultimately, the development of smoking-related disease.”

Menthol is found in peppermint and has a “cooling” effect with mild anesthetic qualities. It is added to almost all cigarettes by manufacturers, Yale said, with some brands marketed as menthol cigarettes.

The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act banned flavored tobacco additives such as cloves, cinnamon, candy or other flavors, but exempted menthol, Yale said. The Food and Drug Administration is evaluating scientific data on menthol and could ban it as well.

The study appears online in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Other authors are John B. Morris, Michael A. Ha and Daniel N. Willis of the University of Connecticut and Boyi Liu of Yale.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the American Asthma Foundation.

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