Next time you use the words “smoking addiction,” think of it more as a nicotine dependence that could be linked to your genetics.

Robert Philibert, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa, prefers not describing someone as having a smoking addiction because it is a label. Rather, he said nicotine dependence is “a more exact term.”

“[Nicotine dependence] is a form of dependence like anything else,” Philibert said. “There’s treatment [and] help for it.”

Philibert has studied psychiatric behavioral genetics for 20 years. He is currently in his fourth year of doing research on substance abuse, which is funded through the National Institutes of Health.

Philibert does genetic profiling, which he described as a “new method to understand and diagnose gene networks that promote nicotine dependence.”

Individuals may have genetic variations “that make you more likely to become addicted to smoking,” he said.

Philibert said it has been known for 20 to 30 years that there is a “genetic predisposition to smoking.”

“About 40 percent of your vulnerability to nicotine dependence is secondary to genetics, and the rest is gene-environment relations,” Philibert said.

Even though these genes cannot be removed or changed, making changes in your environment can make you less likely to smoke, Philibert said. For example, if you do have genetic variations that make you more likely to smoke it is a good idea not to be around places where smoking is prevalent.

With the upcoming smoking ban in July, the action could help lower the risk of becoming nicotine dependent for those individuals who are genetically predisposed to nicotine dependence.

Molly Eshelman, senior in kinesiology and health, was not aware of the relation between nicotine dependence and genetics.

“I think it should be more known to people,” Eshelman said.

Eshelman said she thinks the smoking ban could possibly stop people from becoming dependent on nicotine.

People are less likely to smoke if the environments do not allow smoking, she said.

“I think some people smoke in those environments [where smoking is prevalent],” Eshelman said.