Four of the biggest selling tobacco brands in the world were recently tested in a study published in Environmental Health Perspectives [Downloads the study] and were found to contain 15 species of bacteria, some of them known to be disease-causing.
Packs of Marlboro, Camel, Kool Filter Kings, and Lucky Strike Original Red were randomly purchased from 5 different stores in France. The cigarettes were then tested in a sterile environment to look for any species of bacteria present in the tobacco. "We were quite surprised to identify such a wide variety of human bacterial pathogens in these products," said lead researcher Amy R. Sapkota.
Fifteen different classes of bacteria and a broad range of potentially pathogenic organisms were detected in all cigarette samples. These microbes not only are known to cause acute infectious illnesses but also are increasingly being recognized as risk factors for chronic diseases including cancers (Correa 2003; Hohenberger and Gretschel 2003; Parsonnet 1995) and neurological disorders (McKee and Sussman 2005; Schulz et al. 2006).
Many of the organisms detected are capable of causing pneumonia, blood infections, food-bourne illnesses, meningitis, urinary tract infections, and inflammation inside the heart itself. Just one of the bacteria, P. aeruginosa, which was detected in all the cigarettes in this study, causes 10 percent of all hospital-acquired infections in the United States. E. coli bacteria were also found.
Previous research (Eaton et al, 1995) has shown that bacteria can survive the high temperatures and gases emitted from cigarettes and that these micro-organisms enter the mouth and nose.
Additional Sources:
Correa P. 2003. Bacterial infections as a cause of cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 95:E3.
Eaton T, Falkinham JO, III, von Reyn CF. 1995. Recovery of Mycobacterium avium from cigarettes. J Clin Microbiol 33:2757-2758.
Hohenberger P, Gretschel S. 2003. Gastric cancer. Lancet 362:305-315.
McKee DH, Sussman JD. 2005. Case report: severe acute Parkinsonism associated with streptococcal infection and antibasal ganglia antibodies. Mov Disord 20:1661-1663.
Parsonnet J. 1995. Bacterial infection as a cause of cancer. Environ Health Perspect 103 Suppl 8:263-268.
Schulz JD, Hawkes EL, Shaw CA. 2006. Cycad toxins, Helicobacter pylori and parkinsonism: cholesterol glucosides as the common denomenator. Med Hypotheses 66:1222-1226.
WHO IARC. IARC monographs on the evaluation of carcinogenic risks to humans; Tobacco smoke and involuntary smoking. [83]. 2004. Lyon, France, World Health Organization.
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