Passive Exposure to Pollutants from a New Generation of Cigarettes in Real Life Scenarios.

Joseph Savdie,Nuno Canha,Susana Marta Almeida,Nicole Buitrago

doi:10.3390/ijerph17103455

Abstract

The use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) and heat-not-burn tobacco (HNBT), as popular nicotine delivery systems (NDS), has increased among adult demographics. This study aims to assess the effects on indoor air quality of traditional tobacco cigarettes (TCs) and new smoking alternatives, to determine the differences between their potential impacts on human health. Measurements of particulate matter (PM1, PM2.5 and PM10), black carbon, carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) were performed in two real life scenarios, in the home and in the car. The results indicated that the particle emissions from the different NDS devices were significantly different. In the home and car, the use of TCs resulted in higher PM10 and ultrafine particle concentrations than when e-cigarettes were smoked, while the lowest concentrations were associated with HNBT. As black carbon and CO are released by combustion processes, the concentrations of these two pollutants were significantly lower for e-cigarettes and HNBT because no combustion occurs when they are smoked. CO2 showed no increase directly associated with the NDS but a trend linked to a higher respiration rate connected with smoking. The results showed that although the levels of pollutants emitted by e-cigarettes and HNBT are substantially lower compared to those from TCs, the new smoking devices are still a source of indoor air pollutants.

Highlights

There is a scientific and medical consensus that cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers [1]
This study evaluated the levels of particles, black carbon, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide during the smoking of e-cigarettes, heat-not-burn tobacco (HNBT) and tobacco cigarettes (TCs) in homes and cars to assess the potential exposure of smokers and non-smokers
Onat et al [45] measured indoor pollutants in different commuting vehicles in Istanbul and registered, for cars, an average black a set of indoor pollutants in different−3commuting vehicles in Istanbul and registered, for cars, an carbon concentration of 2.3 ± 1.3 μg·m with closed windows, similar to the results obtained in this average black carbon concentration of 2.3 ± 1.3 μg·m−3 with closed windows, similar to the results study for TC1

Summary

Introduction

There is a scientific and medical consensus that cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers [1]. About 8 million people worldwide die from tobacco use [2], and its consumption has been consistently declared as the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world [3]. Convincing scientific evidence has been available for a long time from experimental and epidemiological studies demonstrating that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), called secondhand smoke (SHS) or passive smoke, causes respiratory and heart diseases including lung cancer in adult nonsmokers [5]. In 2017, 1.22 million deaths were caused by SHS [2] 15% of the deaths linked to tobacco).

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