"Third-hand smoke is
the accumulation of second-hand smoke on the environmental surfaces,” said
Manuela Martins-Green, a cell biologist at the University of California,
Riverside. “So, as the smoke is coming out of the ends of the cigarettes, it's
then depositing on the sofas, the carpets, the clothing, the hair … all the
surfaces … even if it's wood. And it's not just accumulating in the homes,
[but] in the cars as well."
Young children are at particular risk for
contact with third-hand smoke, Martins-Green said, as they crawl along the
carpet and put their hands in their mouths.And it's not a threat just in homes and cars,
she added. Those toxic fumes can spread throughout a building via ventilation
systems.Martins-Green and her colleagues discovered
that cigarette residues are easily absorbed into the body.
"And those chemicals are actually
absorbed through the skin very rapidly,” Martins-Green said. “So they go in
circulation and they go all over the body, and that's one thing you don't
want."Smoke and miceResearchers studied the effects of third-hand smoke on mice,
using smoke machines in the enclosures to simulate second-hand smoke.
They found the first signs of a health
problem in the animals' livers, an increase in lipids or fats seen in people
with pre-diabetes. They then measured the amount of glucose or blood sugar in
the mice, and found that it, too, was elevated, as were levels of insulin, a
hormone used by the body to convert glucose into energy.
Through exposure to the toxic chemicals in
third-hand smoke, the mice had developed insulin resistance, a precursor to
type 2 diabetes. The findings are published in the journal PLoS One.Martins-Green said the process can start in
childhood, and doctors are now seeing teenagers with elevated blood sugar.
"A very relevant aspect of our science …
is that when you feed these mice high-fat diets like the teenagers and young
adults eat, you know, these hamburgers and tacos and all these things laden
with fat, that we find that the effects of the third-hand smoke make the
situation — the disease situation — worse," she said.Martins-Green is now leading an effort to
look for a link between third-hand smoke and liver damage. FOR THOSE THAT
SMOKE THIS IS WHAT YOUR LUNGS LOOK LIKE.
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