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Tobacco Chemicals
January 4, 2011
I never smoked. My parents smoked when I was a child, but they quit after a friend died of a smoking-related illness. At the same time, evidence started to mount as to the harmful effects of smoking. The first
Surgeon General's report on smoking and health appeared a few years later, on January 11, 1964. My Uncle Walt, whom I mentioned in a
previous article (Random Pi, June 30, 2008), used to roll his own
cigarettes. My maternal grandfather, who needed full use of his hands since he was a
machinist, didn't smoke cigarettes, but used
snuff instead.
Today's
computer people seem to prefer a
caffeine fix over smoking, either from
coffee or
soft drinks. For a summary of the caffeine charge in your coffee cup, see the table in my
previous article (Coffee Rings, December 10, 2010). In the early days of computing, even before
smoke-free offices, computer people didn't smoke because it would interfere with the
magnetic media that were everywhere. A particle of
smoke is a few micrometers in size, not quite a boulder to the clunky
read/write heads in those days, but still about the same dimension as a
magnetic domain in
magnetic tape.
With the new year just upon us, there are many who have resolved to quit smoking. It's easier to do that now, since there are aids such as
nicotine patches and
nicotine gum. One scientist I know tried to quit smoking before the advent of these cessation aids, and he wasn't successful. Fifteen years later, another scientist I know successfully used them to quit.
As an added incentive to the scientifically trained who want to quit, the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected a list of twenty-eight
carcinogenic chemicals found in
tobacco products, as shown in the table. [1]
Wikipedia has a much longer list of carcinogens found in cigarette
smoke,[2-3] but the list below covers
smokeless products as well.
Carcinogenic Agents in Tobacco
| Chemical | Type of Tobacco | Concentration (ng/g) |
| Benzo[a]pyrene | NT, S | > 0.1 - 90.0 |
| α-Angelica Lactone | NT | present |
| β-Angelica Lactone | NT | present |
| Coumarin | NT | 600 |
| Ethyl Carbamate | CT | 310 - 375 |
| Formaldehyde | NT, S | 1,600 - 7,400 |
| Acetaldehyde | NT, S | 1,400 - 27,400 |
| Crotonaldehyde | S | 200 - 2,400 |
| Nitrosodimethylamine | CT, S | ND - 270 |
| Nitrosopyrrolidine | CT, S | ND - 760 |
| Nitrosopiperidine | CT, S | ND - 110 |
| Nitrosomorpholine | CT, S | ND - 690 |
| Nitrosodiethanolamine | CT, S | 40 - 6,800 |
| Nitrososarcosine | S | ND - 2,500 |
| 3-(Methylnitrosamino)- propionic acid | CT, S | 200 - 65,700 |
| 4-(Methylnitrosamino)- butyric acid | CT, S | ND - 9,100 |
| Nitrosoazetadine-2-carboxylic acid | CT | 4 - 140 |
| N'-Nitrosonornicotine | CT, S | 400 - 147,000 |
| 4-(Methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone | CT, S | ND - 18,000 |
| 4-(Methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol | S | present |
| N'-Nitrosoanabasine | SM, S | present - 560 |
| Hydrazine | SM | 14 - 51 |
| Arsenic | NT | 500 - 900 |
| Nickel | SM, S | 180 - 2,700 |
| Cadmium | SM | 700 - 790 |
| Polonium-210 | NT, S | 0.16 - 1.22(pCi/g) |
| Uranium-235 | S | 2.4(pCi/g) |
| Uranium-238 | S | 1.91(pCi/g) |
NT = natural tobacco; SM = smoking tobacco; S = snuff; CT = chewing tobacco; ND = not detected.
Radioactive elements, nickel, arsenic and cadmium in my tobacco? Every plant will incorporate inorganic minerals from its
soil, so that's no surprise. What's important is when these are delivered directly to your
lungs. I'm afraid of any
organic chemical with a name longer than sixteen characters, and I don't smoke.
I have three
anecdotes relating to tobacco. The
tobacco mosaic virus was the first virus to be discovered. The virus was crystallized by
Wendell Meredith Stanley in 1935, and Stanley received a share of the 1946
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. His fellow laureates,
James Sumner and
John Northrop were honored for the
crystallization of
enzymes.
The popular period piece,
Mad Men, includes a lot of cigarette smoking. You couldn't do an accurate portrayal of the 1960s without it. All the actors smoke
herbal cigarettes, since they can't smoke tobacco cigarettes in their workplace. Yes, acting is really considered to be work.
When I was in high school, I read a letter to the health column in the local newspaper in which a student inquired about the validity of something a science teacher had told his class. As the student related it, the teacher had argued that it wasn't the tobacco in cigarettes that was bad, it was the
cigarette paper. I immediately realized that his teacher was making a point about the
scientific method that the student misunderstood. If your experiments find that cigarettes are bad, don't forget that the paper is part of the cigarette, too. Years later, when
dioxin (a.k.a.,
Agent Orange) was discovered in bleached paper,[4] I realized that the teacher's point was well taken.
Smoking will make your ears fall off! Well, maybe not. Van Gogh Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat. (Vincent van Gogh, Selbstporträt mit abgeschnittenem Ohr, 1889).
References:
- Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph No. 2, Smokeless Tobacco or Health: An International Perspective; PDF File with data, Chapter Three, Table I, page 99.
- List of cigarette smoke carcinogens (Wikipedia).
- Report on Carcinogens, Eleventh Edition; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Toxicology Program.
- Illinois Department of Public Health, Fact Sheet - Dioxins.
Permanent Link to this article
Linked Keywords: Surgeon General's report on smoking and health; cigarettes; machinist; snuff; programmer; caffeine; coffee; soft drinks; smoke-free office; magnetic media; smoke; tape head; read/write head; magnetic domain; magnetic tape; nicotine patche; nicotine gum; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; carcinogenic; tobacco; Wikipedia; smokeless; benzene; pyrene; angelica lactone; coumarin; ethyl carbamate; formaldehyde; acetaldehyde; crotonaldehyde; nitrosodimethylamine; nitrosodiethanolamine; propionic acid; butyric acid; carboxylic acid; nitrosonornicotine; butanone; butanol; hydrazine; arsenic; nickel; cadmium; polonium; uranium-235; uranium-238; radioactive; soil; lungs; organic chemical; anecdote; tobacco mosaic virus; TMV; Wendell Meredith Stanley; Nobel Prize in Chemistry; James Sumner; John Northrop; crystallization; enzyme; cigarette paper; scientific method; dioxin; Agent Orange; Vincent van Gogh; Selbstporträt mit abgeschnittenem Ohr.