Passive smoking more harmful than thought
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Casual tobacco smoking and secondhand or passive smoking can do more harm than previously thought, according to a new study which found even low levels of exposure to cigarette smoke can alternate the function of genes implicated in lung diseases.
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University and Presbyterian Hospital found that exposure to cigarette smoke at low levels either through passive smoking or infrequent tobacco smoking raised risk for future lung diseases including lung cancer and respiratory disease like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.
The study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine is considered the first to demonstrate that passive smoking and infrequent tobacco smoking, which are considered minor sources of cigarette smoke, can affect the body at a genetic function level even though it has been known for long that secondhand smoking is dangerous.
Dr. Ronald Crystal and colleagues said genes that are activated in the cells can also be turned on or off by exposure to low levels of cigarette smoke.
For the study, the researchers tested 121 people for levels of nicotine and cotinine in urine samples, which are markers of cigarette smoke in the body and based on the levels of the markers, participants were grouped into different categories, nonsmokers, active smokers and low exposure smokers.
They then scanned the entire genomes of the participants to see which genes were activated or deactivated in cells lining the airways. They found any level of nicotine or cotinine correlate with genetic abnormalities, meaning exposure to cigarette smoke either through passive smoking or infrequent smoking can cause injury to the cells.
"This means that no level of smoking, or exposure to secondhand smoke, is safe," said Dr. Crystal.
Secondhand smoke also known as environmental tobacco smoke consists of at least 250 toxic chemicals including more than 50 carcinogens or cancer-causing agents.
Passive smoking affects an estiated 126 million nonsmokers in homes, vehecles, workplaces and public areas in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Passive smoking has been linked to a whole spectrum of serious diseases including tuberculosis, cardiovascular disease, pancreatic cancer, diabetes mellitus, respiratory infections, kidney disease, acute stroke, acute heart attack or myocardial infarction, and atherosclerosis.
By David Liu
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I quit 8 years ago. One year ago I found
out I have COPD, for the rest of my life, stop now, before it's too late/
David
Greenville,ca
A recently reported study showed that teenagers who watch more television are at greater risk for depression later. But the study did not attempt to exclude subjects with ADHD, which may cause both excessive television viewing and later depression.
In many of these study results reported by the popular press, I see evidence that the methods used may have skewed the result in a way that will make the result more newsworthy. Maybe newsworthy results are more likely to attract grant money. If so, we need to be very suspicious of any study result reported by the popular press.
I work in downtown Toronto, where is seems that these days every second person smokes. Mostly around building doors, but also walking down the street. It is impossible to go a day without inhaling a lot of second hand smoke. It makes me really angry that smokers are allowed to put my health at risk this way. And don't get me started on the health care costs of smoking.
When did it become socially acceptable to smoke again? Are we in a timewarp to the 1960's? There should be no smoking in any public space. People can choose to smoke and risk their own health. But they should not be allowed to choose to risk mine.
statistically insignificant health
risk.
http://fightingback.homestead.***
Really? Just being EXPOSED to smoke? The reporter should have been more careful and gone beyond the misleading press release stage. Even spending five minutes looking over the actual study with a critical eye would have revealed that the way its results are being presented is little better than outright fraud.
The study used 3 subgroups:"Healthy nonsmokers, healthy smokers, and healthy individuals exposed to low levels of tobacco smoke." Now most reasonable people would think that the third category was composed of nonsmokers exposed to smoke, right?
Wrong. Buried on page 6 the study makes a single mention of an overwhelmingly important fact: "The low level exposure group included self-reported never smokers (8/36) and those who reported some smoking (28/36)."
In case you missed it, that means that 28 of the 36 "individuals exposed to low levels of tobacco smoke" were actually SMOKERS! Only 8 were actually true nonsmokers with ETS exposure. Figure 2B at the study's end shows it even more clearly with the nonsmoking group all clustered up in one little area, and right next to them showing almost exactly the same lack of "effect" are the 8 little nonsmokers in the "low exposure group."
Despite the public presentation the reality of the data does NOT seem to support smoking bans. Any "risk" worthy of the term seems to begin only with light smokers, not ETS-exposed nonsmokers.
Why did the study lump ETS-exposed individuals in with light smokers? The only reason I can think of is in order to produce a result that would allow them to confuse the two and thereby add to the scare and support smoking bans.
Hey, it worked: Just read the lead paragraph of the story above!
Michael J. McFadden,
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
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