Babies may absorb smoke residue in home

KARE 11 ^ | 07 AUGUST 2006 | KARE 11

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

As any parent knows, crawling babies explore the world by touching - and tasting - anything they can get their wet little hands on.

If their parents use tobacco, that curiosity may expose babies to what some doctors are calling "thirdhand" smoke - particles and gases given off by cigarettes that cling to walls, clothes and even hair and skin. Up to 90% of the nicotine in cigarette smoke sticks to nearby surfaces, says Georg Matt, a professor at San Diego State University.

Preliminary research by Matt and others suggests the same chemicals that leave a stale cigarette odor on clothes and upholstery also can be swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin of non-smokers. Smoke residue may linger for hours, days or months, depending on the ventilation and the level of contamination. In some cases, contaminants may need to be removed by rigorously cleaning or replacing wallpaper, rugs and drapes, Matt says.

Matt cautions that his research needs to be confirmed by other studies. But his work suggests that babies may take in nicotine and other chemicals just by hugging their mothers - even if their mothers never light up next to them.

About 43% of children ages 2 months to 11 years live with a smoker, according to research described in Matt's 2004 study in the journal Tobacco Control.

In his small study of 49 infants under 13 months old, Matt found nicotine in the air and dust throughout smokers' homes, even when parents smoked only outside. Tests also found a nicotine byproduct, cotinine, in babies' urine and inside shafts of their hair.

As expected, babies whose parents smoked around them had the highest cotinine levels - nearly 50 times higher than the babies of non-smokers, according to the study.

Smokers who tried to shield their infants had only partial success, Matt says. The babies of parents who smoked only outside had cotinine levels seven times higher than in the infants of non-smokers, the study showed.

Adults also may be exposed to significant smoke residue if they rent cars, hotel rooms or apartments that have soaked up years of smoke, Matt says. He worries more about youngsters, however, because they may be exposed day and night for years.

Children also may be at greater risk because they breathe faster than adults and inhale more chemicals, says Jonathan Winickoff, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Crawling babies may take in chemicals through their skin.

Though scientists have extensive evidence about the damage caused by secondhand smoke, they know relatively little about the potential risks of thirdhand exposure, says Brett Singer, a scientist at California's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. "The million-dollar question is: How dangerous is this?" Singer says. "We can't say for sure this is a health hazard."

Matt agrees that doctors should study children - ideally for 10 or 15 years or more - to see whether low levels of smoke residue worsen asthma or harm the development of a child's lungs.

[Marie]

My husband has been trying to kill me that way for years. I just spray Lysol at him. We'll see who goes first.

LMAO!!!

[Nathan Zachary]

You had a choice to either be there, or not, right?

Obviously you chose to hang around. That's what freedom is all about. At the rate this country is going, freedom will be a myth that children will read about in hitory books.

[Marie]

If you think that's bad, try cleaning out a house where the occupant had 10 cats for 40 years. That stink cannot be removed. The only thing that works on that is a match.

OK, what you said is probably only funny to me. See, my mother had 40 cats for 10 years! (Absolutely true. It went up to just over 50 for a few months, but she brought it back down again.)

And no, her house didn't smell at all. ;-)

[Crooked Constituent]

Indeed, I chose to be there despite the irritation. It was fun to exercise my freedom. I hope the future isn't like you predict. Sadly, it is all too possible.

[The Red Zone]

Is there a Doctor in the house.

[The Red Zone]

Is there a Doctor in the house.

[Marie]

I don't think smoking causes cancer directly, it most likely just helps cancers take hold in a body which is weak from a whole variety of reasons, poor diet, exposure to other harmfull chemicals, such as working in a metal refinery, or a plastic molding factory, a paint factory, cloth factory, welding, diesel shop, etc etc.

And you are a very smart man. I read an article about a year ago where some scientists were working on a derivative from nicotine that encouraged blood vessels to grow. From what I remember, it helps diabetic foot ulcers to heal.

This got me thinking; what if cigarettes don't cause cancer, they just help establish a good blood supply to the already existing tumors and aid with metastasization?

[metesky]

All those poor kids are gonna end up dieing.

Just like everybody else.

[The Red Zone]

Courtesy Wikipedia:

In mammals, sucrose is very readily digested in the stomach into its component sugars, by acidic hydrolysis. The glucose and fructose are then rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream in the small intestine. Undigested sucrose passing into the intestine is also broken down by sucrase or isomaltase enzymes, which are located in the membrane of the microvilli lining the duodenum. These products are also transferred rapidly into the bloodstream.

Once more medical science trumps junk science.

[Marie]

Just as a side note to how much the thinking has changed- my mother gave me her old baby care book and it actually said that new nervous mothers should have a beer and smoke a cigarette to relax before breastfeeding so their milk would come down easier. I did really get a chuckle out of that one-mostly thinking about the reaction to that advice from many people I could think of; before I get flamed- NO I did not follow that advice.

When my son was born in '93 my German doctor was insistant that I have a "good" German beer before breastfeeding my son in the evening. (I'll admit, I did take to having a bit from my husband's beer a couple of times a week.)

[The Red Zone]

You took all the time to read up to "male pattern baldness" and called her a he.

[TheTruthAintPretty]

What I am basically saying is that, when I lived with smokers, I was sick a lot. Runny noses, sore throats, bronchitis. When I lived with my non-smoking grandparents (who lived into their 80s and 90s), not so much. My theory? The smoke didn't necessarily CAUSE the diseases, but it was an irritant which reduced my immune system.

My late father's fiance, another heavy smoker, has emphysema, and is on oxygen. In her mid 50s. So unfortunately, I will probably be going to ANOTHER funeral of someone I care about soon!

And regardless of whether or not it is harmful, smoking STINKS! The smell of the homes and cars of smokers is repulsive. It gives me headaches and sore throats, so I tend to avoid them. I like the people, I just get ill around them.

As for those 92 year old grandmas and aunts that people brag about...how many of them sounded like "Froggy" from the Little Rascals? How many of them could complete a sentence without coughing?

So yes, I hate tobacco! The world would be a better place without it.

[metesky]

Yeah, my poor smoking Dad keeled over at 95. Too bad they weren't in it for the long run, eh?
;O)

[nopardons]

Nope, wrong yet again. I didn't look at the n00b's personal page until long after you mentioned it. I just assumed that it had to be a man, because if the abject lack of knowledge about laundry. Women usually know about that; even ones who have someone else doing it for them.

[nopardons]

My goodness but you're a nasty little person. Go haunt some other thread.

Puff, puff, puff.....................

[Marie]

When the doctor told Daddy that he had prostate cancer, Daddy said, "But, I've promised everyone that I'd die of lung cancer." (Sometimes he says he said, "Everyone promised me that . . . "

Well see, thar ya go. It *was* the smoking that killed him. Don't you know that smoking causes everything now? Why, according to my doctor, it's because she's a smoker that my mother gained weight, then suddenly lost weight, then discovered that she has Grave's disease. It's also why she had terrible gum disease even though the gum disease started when she was living with her good, Christian parents (who never touched cigarettes or alcohol in their lives) when she was in her early teens. It's why she has hemorrhoids and why I have irritable bowel syndrome.

/sarcasm

I've seen smoking blamed for breast cancer, breast lumps, cystic ovaries, diabetes, asthma, impotence, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, anal fissures (figure *that* one out), chronic constipation *and* diarrhea, weight gain, weight loss, hair loss, and even (you're not going to believe this one) ringworm. Yes, the doctor blamed a stubborn spot of ringworm on the fact that I smoked.

It's like all illnesses are somehow linked to cigarettes. And, in the case of my great aunt who died of lung cancer and never smoked in her life (actually, she had *no* risk factors), we were told, "I'm sorry, but these thing sometimes just happen." Trust me, if you smoke, nothing will ever "just happen" to you. It's all your fault.

[GoodWithBarbarians JustForKaos]

Good one! I hadn't thought of that. Our children with 'overly' active immune systems could save the world!

[philman_36]

I call BS!
Babies may absorb smoke residue in home...
...curiosity may expose babies...

They don't KNOW, they're guessing.

One of the most popular debating techniques, especially on the Internet, is to call your opponent a Nazi.

The anti-smokers, of course, bristle at the comparison, quickly pointing out that they are not rounding up smokers and sending them to death camps. Hitler never did that to smokers either. He simply vilified them, taxed them, lied about them, restricted advertising of tobacco, and forbade smoking in public places. Comparing Hitler's treatment of those he murdered to smokers would be absurd. Comparing Hitler's treatment of smokers to the behavior of today's anti-smokers is a perfect apples to apples comparison.

Pile on that bandwagon good and thick so you're all easy to spot...

[metesky]

Nasty little nooB who has blandly assigned all WallMart employees to "the bottom of the barrel".

Check it out.

[neverdem]

Is there a Doctor in the house.

Call the health nazis. This proposes third hand smoke hazards. I haven't seen any hard studies that validate concern over second hand tobacco smoke hazards.

Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98