Added toxicity in light cigarettes

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have recently discovered that smoke produced by "light" cigarettes contain higher levels of toxicity than their full flavored counterparts. These findings will come as a shock to smokers who have changed their smoking habits to accommodate the perceived slightly less harmful option.

For a number of years, tobacco companies have marketed light variety cigarettes under the assumption that they are "safer" than the more traditional brands. However, recent findings have shown that this is not the case. Light brand cigarette smoke contains more toxins than their traditional cousins. Even more concerning is that tobacco companies have, for a long time, labeled the chemicals produced by light cigarettes as safe, despite the fact that the effect of many of these toxins have not been tested.

Prue Talbot, a professor of cell biology in UCR and the head researcher for this project, has noted that the toxic effects produced from light cigarettes has an adverse effect on both reproduction and fetal development in their mice test subjects. She also concludes that these effects are more than likely to be replicated and problematic in human embryonic development.

The research team used pre-implanted mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) for this study. Their aim was to compare the toxic effects on the embryonic cells from smoke produced by both light and traditional variety cigarettes. Additionally, the effects of two types of smoke; main-stream, inhaled smoke and side-stream smoke, the smoke produced by burning cigarettes, were studied.

The findings with this study showed that main-stream and side-stream smoke produced by both light and traditional cigarettes were toxic to the pre-implanted embryos. Both retarded embryonic growth and killed the early formed cells. However, what was most shocking to the researchers was that both types of smoke produced from the light brand cigarettes contained far more toxicity that smoke produced from the traditional cigarettes.

“This result was unexpected since harm reduction brands purportedly have lower concentrations of toxicants,” stated Talbot.

 

Original Source -Clinically Psyched

Authors -Clinically Psyched

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