There is probably no one who does not know that smoking is a bad thing. However, we still haven’t been able to determine exactly how bad it is. A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside found that not only first- or second-hand smoking, but third-hand smoking also has harmful effects. Third-hand smoking describes all the pollutants and chemicals that come out of cigarette smoke that settle indefinitely on walls, carpets, curtains, clothing, furniture and many surfaces that surround us every day.
“We found that human skin exposure to THS [third-hand smoke] initiates mechanisms of inflammatory skin disease,” said Shane Sakamaki-Ching, doctor of cellular, molecular and developmental biology and lead author of the paper. “Acute skin exposure to THS mimics the harmful effects of smoking.”
15-minute “third hand cigarette” experiment with 10 people
The first study to look at people dermally exposed to third-hand smoke involved 10 healthy non-smokers wearing filtered air or clothing impregnated with third-hand smoke particles. The study lasted a total of three hours, during which time participants walked or jogged on a treadmill for at least 15 minutes per hour, thereby potentially increasing levels of transdermal thirdhand smoking by sweating.
Blood and urine samples were taken at regular intervals from all participants measured for protein changes and markers of oxidative stress. We looked for clues that third-hand smoking could cause cell or tissue damage.
“We found that acute THS exposure caused elevations of urinary biomarkers of oxidative damage to DNA, lipids, and proteins, and these biomarkers remained elevated after exposure stopped,” said Sakamaki-Ching, a research scientist at Kite Pharma in California. Smokers show the same elevation in these biomarkers,” he says.
Even a smoked car is dangerous
The study revealed that exposure to third-hand smoke raises specific biomarkers associated with skin diseases such as contact dermatitis and psoriasis. This makes sense, as the organ most likely to come into contact with THS is your skin, which will likely take the largest dose of these dangerous substances.
Even more worryingly, Sakamaki-Ching notes that the “oxidative damage” recorded in the study could lead to other diseases such as cancer, heart disease and atherosclerosis.
When you consider how persistent and unpredictable third-hand cigarettes can be, you can easily guess that all this is a huge potential problem. “There is a general lack of knowledge about human health responses to THS exposure,” says Prue Talbot, professor of cell biology at UC Riverside and corresponding author of the study. you’re taking risks. If you go to a casino that allows smoking, you are exposing your skin to THS. The same goes for staying in a hotel room that was previously used by a smoker.”
And all these results came from just three hours of research. The researchers plan to study larger populations with longer exposures in the future. The team’s next project will examine e-cigarette smokers and test these allegedly less deadly products.
The study was published in the journal eBioMedicine, part of The Lancet family of journals.
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