On May 2nd, 2011, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reported that moderate exposure to secondhand smoke delivers nicotine to the brain. These recent results demonstrated that simply being exposed to secondhand smoke (for example, by riding in an enclosed car or being in the same room as someone else smokes) has a direct and measurable impact on the brain. This effect on the brain is similar to the effect seen in the person who is actually doing the smoking.
Using positron emission tomography (PET) and analyzying the effects of nicotine on binding of receptors in the brain, the study demonstrated that one hour of exposure to secondhand smoke had the same effect on the brain as direct exposure to tobacco smoke (i.e., smoking a cigarette directly). “These results show that even limited secondhand smoke exposure delivers enough nicotine to the brain to alter its function,” said National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora D. Volkow, M.D. “Chronic or severe exposure could result in even higher brain nicotine levels, which may explain why secondhand smoke exposure increases vulnerability to nicotine addiction.”
Previous studies have shown that children exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to become teenage smokers than children not exposed to secondhand smoke. Additionally, these studies found that it is more difficult for adult smokers to quit if they had exposure to secondhand smoke as a child.
Secondhand smoke has been reported to cause disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke. Every year in Connecticut, approximately 4,900 people die from smoking-related diseases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost 50,000 deaths per year can be attributed to secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke causes heart disease and lung cancer in non-smoking adults. In children, secondhand smoke causes many serious health conditions, including sudden infant death syndrome, respiratory infections, more severe asthma, low infant birth weight, and chronic middle ear infections.
This recent NIH-funded study "gives concrete evidence to support policies that ban smoking in public places, particularly enclosed spaces and around children,” said Arthur Brody, M.D., of the UCLA Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences.
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