Should We be Concerned with Nicotine in Sport? Analysis from 60,802 Doping Control Tests in Italy.

"Declarations FundingOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. Conflicts of InterestTM has received funding from WADA for research into nicotine (project support only). Availability of data and materialAll data that support the findings of this study are shown in the Supplementary Material Table 1 (see electronic supplementary material). Ethics approvalThe WADA-approved laboratory (as Rome Antidoping Lab) follows the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and any applicable national standards as they relate to the involvement of human subjects in research. There is no need for an ethical approval for antidoping samples where the analysis is targeted to a substance that is in the WADA list or in the WADA monitoring program: the athletes approve this when they are ‘enrolled’ within the rules of the sport federations. The Director of the WADA-accredited laboratory that analysed the data provided the Code of Ethics to all employees and ensured their understanding and compliance with all aspects of the Code. All employees of laboratories and WADA-approved laboratories shall strictly respect the confidentiality of analytical testing results, as well as that of all other laboratory or testing authority information, including information provided by WADA under confidentiality. The laboratory implemented and complied with the provision(s) of the WADA Code of Ethics to ensure the strict anonymity of individual athletes. The laboratories are expected to comply with the relevant and applicable national laws regarding the handling, storage and discarding of controlled (illegal) substances. Consent to participateNot applicable. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Code availabilityNot applicable. Author contributionsTZ and TM drafted the manuscript and interpreted the data. FB and MGA analysed the data. All authors critically reviewed the manuscript, provided significant input and approved the final version. Conflicts of Interest TM has received funding from WADA for research into nicotine (project support only)."

"Funding Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors."