U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday that American cigarettes contain more cancer-causing agents than those in Canada, Britain and Australia.
Their study also demonstrated that the amount of these carcinogens in a smoker’s cigarette butts directly correlated with tell-tale compounds in the smoker’s urine.
The study can help researchers try to trace the harmful effects of smoking.
“We know that cigarettes from around the world vary in their ingredients and the way they are produced,” said Dr. Jim Pirkle of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who heads a lab using a mass spectrometer to measure levels of chemicals in people’s bodies
“All of these cigarettes contain harmful levels of carcinogens, but these findings show that amounts of tobacco-specific nitrosamines differ from country to country, and U.S. brands are the highest in the study,” Pirkle said in a statement.
CDC’s David Ashley and colleagues did in-depth tests involving 126 smokers in the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia.
“Seventeen eligible cigarette brands (between 3 and 5 brands from each country) were selected on the basis of national sales and nicotine yield to identify popular brands with a range of ventilation,” the researchers wrote in the June issue of Cancer Epidemiology.
Volunteers had their saliva and urine tested and also turned over their used cigarette butts to the researchers.
These were all tested for nicotine and the chemicals 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK for short) and the breakdown product of NNK in the body, known as NNAL.
These cancer-causing agents are known as tobacco-specifics nitrosamines or TSNAs.
“We have shown a direct association between the 24-hour mouth-level exposure of NNK resulting from cigarette smoking and the concentration of its primary metabolite, NNAL, in the urine of smokers,” the researchers wrote.
“Internal dose concentrations of urinary NNAL are significantly lower in smokers in countries that have lower TSNA levels in cigarettes such as Canada and Australia in contrast to countries that have high levels of these carcinogens in cigarettes, such as the United States.”
The popular U.S. cigarette brands studied contained “American blend” tobacco. This tobacco is known to have higher TSNA levels than the “bright” tobacco used in the most popular Australian, Canadian, and British brands.
Australian and Canadian smokers got more nicotine than U.S. and British smokers, but not of TSNAs.
The World Health Organization says 5 million people die each due to tobacco-related heart attacks, strokes and cancers. Another 430,000 adults die annually from second-hand smoke.
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