Replies

I don't think one would test positive for primary smoking by eating plants from the nightshade family. There's a huge difference between measurements in primary smokers and non-smokers exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Most of the research and analysis I did was to examine anti-smokers claims that non-smokers are regularly exposed to significant amounts of ETS. The fact is that non-smokers are not exposed to an awful lot of tobacco smoke in many places these days. The government estimated through the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) that on average, non-smokers were exposed to approximately 75% less tobacco smoke in 1999-2000 than they were back in 1990. Those measurements are so low that diets rich in nightshades is much more likely to give false positives.

Gabz, you're right that they don't test for nicotine itself because it has such a short half-life. They test for the cotinine, which is a product of nicotine metabolization.

>>>Gabz, you're right that they don't test for nicotine itself because it has such a short half-life. They test for the cotinine, which is a product of nicotine metabolization.

Hi Lockjaw,

I have my husband's New England Journal of Medicine here. It says:

"The presence of nicotine and its metabolite cotinine in the body fluids of nonsmokers is usually taken as evidence of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 800 people, both smokers and nonsmokers, all of whom tested positive for urinary cotinine" (nicotine oxide) "There is considerable evidence that nicotine is present in certain human foods, especially plants from the family Solanaceae (such as potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant). Castro and Monji, Sheen, and Davis et al have reported on the nicotine content of foods and drinks."

So, yes, the nicotine is absorbed from the fruits of the nightshade plants.