{"id":1271,"date":"2013-01-10T07:17:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-10T07:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/personalpolishing.wordpress.com\/?p=1271"},"modified":"2014-08-23T16:36:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T16:36:00","slug":"tobacco-toxins-that-harm-nonsmokers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadershipshape.com\/wardroom\/tobacco-toxins-that-harm-nonsmokers\/","title":{"rendered":"Tobacco Toxins That Harm Nonsmokers"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Carole Jackson><\/strong>, Bottom Line Health<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ever step inside a hotel room and know instantly that someone recently smoked in it?<\/p>\n

Or hop into a rental car and need to roll down the windows immediately to air out the stench of cigarettes?<\/p>\n

Or maybe you occasionally get a “tobacco-y” whiff from the clothes or hair of a smoker who lives below you or in the condo next door.<\/p>\n

So-called \u00e2\u0080\u009cthirdhand\u00e2\u0080\u009d smoke is the contamination that remains after a cigarette has been extinguished.\u00c2\u00a0And I\u00e2\u0080\u0099m sorry to tell you that it\u00e2\u0080\u0099s also dangerous, just like firsthand smoking and secondhand smoke\u00e2\u0080\u0094and why you need to avoid it\u00e2\u0080\u00a6<\/p>\n

OF MICE AND MEN<\/h4>\n

Believe it or not, the quintessential experiment proving the hazards of thirdhand smoke was published in\u00c2\u00a0Cancer Research<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0way back in 1953. Researchers at the (then-called) Sloan-Kettering Institute of the Memorial Center for Cancer and Allied Diseases in New York collected cigarette smoke in a beaker and then gathered the residue that clung to the glass. They mixed the residue with a solvent and painted it on the backs of some mice\u00e2\u0080\u00a6on other mice (the control group), they painted solvent alone. Researchers found that 59% of the mice exposed to tobacco residue developed skin lesions, and most of those mice went on to develop cancer. In contrast, none of the control mice developed skin lesions or cancer.<\/p>\n

Now fast-forward to today. Sure, we\u00e2\u0080\u0099re living in a time when smoking is banned from most public places in the US, but, unfortunately, many homes, apartment buildings, hotel rooms and cars are still heavily contaminated, I learned recently from Jonathan Winickoff, MD, MPH, a pediatrician and professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School in Boston and one of the country\u00e2\u0080\u0099s top researchers on tobacco and health.<\/p>\n

Some of these spaces are being smoked in still\u00e2\u0080\u00a6others used to be smoked in\u00e2\u0080\u00a6and all can hurt your health.<\/p>\n

HOW WE\u00e2\u0080\u0099RE EXPOSED<\/h4>\n

Thirdhand cigarette smoke adheres to all surfaces and remains there even after a butt is stubbed out. \u00e2\u0080\u009cIt\u00e2\u0080\u0099s surprisingly dangerous because it reacts with other compounds in the environment and with itself to create new tobacco-specific nitrosamines, compounds that are highly carcinogenic,\u00e2\u0080\u009d said Dr. Winickoff.<\/p>\n

This thirdhand smoke is, unfortunately, almost impossible to clean off most surfaces, though you\u00e2\u0080\u0099ll have more luck with glass surfaces than with porous ones, such as wallboard. Usually, it just sticks around until someone comes into contact with it.<\/p>\n

There are three ways that humans can come into contact with thirdhand smoke\u00e2\u0080\u00a6<\/p>\n