Plant extract as gas adsorbent to reduce smoke toxicants of cigarette

Cigarette smoke contains thousands of chemicals including many known toxicants and annually leads to millions of deaths worldwide. To reduce the harms of cigarette, plant extracts were applied to adsorb smoke toxicants of cigarette. Results showed that platycladus orientalis leaf extract and mulberry fruit extract particles filled into cigarette cellulose acetate filter can significantly reduce 15 major cigarette smoke toxicants emission including hydrogen cyanide (HCN), benzo[α] pyrene (B[a]P), formaldehyde, crotonaldehyde, 2-butanone, P-hydroquinone, M-dihydroxybenzene, catechol, phenol, M-P-cresol, O-cresol, N'-nitrosonornicotine (NNN), 4-methylnitrosamino-l-3-pyridyl- butanone (NNK), (R,S)-N-nitrosoanatabine (NAT) and (R,S)-N-nitrosoanabasine (NAB) by 11.90% to 60.42% (P<0.01). Platycladus orientalis leaf extract particles added in the outer cigarette filter also can adsorb other 125 kinds of chemicals most of which are harmful. Our results also indicated that plant extract has extensive gas adsorption characteristics and different plant extracts displayed different adsorption capacity to different toxicants. The adsorption capacities of five randomly selected plant extracts are all significantly higher than that of activated carbon（P<0.01). These findings suggest that plant extracts are excellent cigarette smoke adsorbents.

Risk perceptions and continued smoking as a function of cigarette filter ventilation level among US youth and young adults who smoke

BackgroundWhile evidence demonstrates that the industry’s marketing of cigarettes with higher filter ventilation (FV) misleads adults about their health risks, there is no research on the relationships between FV, risk perceptions and smoking trajectories among youth (ages 12–17) and young adults (ages 18–24).MethodsData on FV levels of major US cigarette brands/sub-brands were merged with the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study to examine whether FV level in cigarettes used by wave 1 youth/young adults (n=1970) predicted continued smoking at waves 2–4, and whether those relationships were mediated by perceived risk of their cigarette brand. FV was modelled based on tertiles (0.2%–11.8%, low; 11.9%–23.2%, moderate; 23.3%–61.1%, high) to predict daily smoking, past 30-day smoking and change in number of days smoking at successive waves.ResultsThe odds of perceiving one’s brand as less harmful than other cigarette brands was 2.21 times higher in the high versus low FV group (p=0.0146). Relationships between FV and smoking outcomes at successive waves were non-significant (all p>0.05).ConclusionYouth and young adults who use higher FV cigarettes perceived their brand as less harmful compared with other brands. However, level of FV was not associated with continued smoking.

A Low-Cost, High-Throughput Digital Image Analysis of Stain Patterns on Smoked Cigarette Filter Butts to Estimate Mainstream Smoke Exposure

Standard machine smoking protocols provide useful information for examining the impact of design parameters, such as filter ventilation, on mainstream smoke delivery. Unfortunately, their results do not accurately reflect human smoke exposure. Clinical research and topography devices in human studies yield insights into how products are used, but a clinical setting or smoking a cigarette attached to such a device may alter smoking behavior. To better understand smokers’ use of filtered cigarette products in a more natural environment, we developed a low-cost, high-throughput approach to estimate mainstream cigarette smoke exposure on a per-cigarette basis. This approach uses an inexpensive flatbed scanner to scan smoked cigarette filter butts and custom software to analyze tar-staining patterns. Total luminosity, or optical staining density, of the scanned images provides quantitative information proportional to mainstream smoke-constituent deliveries on a cigarette-by-cigarette basis. Duplicate sample analysis using this new approach and our laboratory’s gold-standard liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) solanesol method yielded comparable results (+7% bias) from the analysis of 20 commercial cigarettes brands (menthol and nonmentholated). The brands varied in design parameters such as length, filter ventilation, and diameter. Plots correlating the luminosity to mainstream smoked-nicotine deliveries on a per-cigarette basis for these cigarette brands were linear (average R2 > 0.91 for nicotine and R2 > 0.83 for the tobacco-specific nitrosamine NNK), on a per-brand basis, with linearity ranging from 0.15 to 3.00 mg nicotine/cigarette. Analysis of spent cigarette filters allows exposures to be characterized on a per-cigarette basis or a “daily dose” via summing across results from all filter butts collected over a 24 h period. This scanner method has a 100-fold lower initial capital cost for equipment than the LC/MS/MS solanesol method and provides high-throughput results (~200 samples per day). Thus, this new method is useful for characterizing exposure related to filtered tobacco-product use.