Saturday - February 20, 2010
Smoker's Own Secondhand Smoke Adds to Health Risks
14 cigarettes a day create exposure equal to inhaling nearly 3 more, study finds
In addition to the risks associated with directly inhaling cigarette smoke, smokers also face significant risk from their own secondhand smoke, researchers say.
The finding, published online Jan. 29 in Environmental Health, challenges the widely held belief that the threat posed to smokers by secondhand smoke is negligible.
The study focused on newsstand agents in Genoa, Italy.
"News agents were chosen because they work alone in small newsstands, meaning that any tobacco smoke in the air they breathe is strictly correlated to the number of cigarettes smoked by that news agent," Maria Teresa Piccardo, of the National Cancer Research Institute in Italy, said in a news release from the journal's publisher. "We studied the contribution environmental tobacco smoke made to carcinogen exposure in 15 active smokers."
Piccardo and her colleagues concluded that secondhand smoke could have a major impact on smokers' health. For example, smoking 14 cigarettes a day results in secondhand smoke exposure that's equivalent to smoking an extra 2.6 cigarettes, they found.
"Both active and passive smoking contributions should always be considered in studies about health of active smokers," Piccardo said.
Posted: Saturday - February 20, 2010 at 06:26 PM
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Posted: Saturday - February 20, 2010 at 06:26 PM
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Fair Use Notice: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available for commentary and criticism in an efforts to advance understanding of holistic health, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.