Tobacco Products in Urine - A Marker of Passive Smoking

GREATER KAILASH, India - May 25, 2013 - PRLog -- In houses where mother or father smoke, the infants have 5.5 times higher levels of nicotine product, called cotinine, in the urine than infants of non-smokers, said PadmaShri & Dr. BC Roy National Awardee, Dr. KK Aggarwal, President Heart Care Foundation of India & National Vice President-Elect IMA.

Dr. Aggarwal said that cotinine is created as the body tries to get rid of the nicotine in inhaled smoke.

Quoting a British study published in the Archives of Diseases in Childhood, Dr. Aggarwal said that sleeping with smoker parents is a known risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome. One of the reasons for the same could be the infant proximity to parents clothing or other objects contaminated with smoke particles.

The study consisted of 104 twelve-week old infants. 71 of them had one of the parent smoking and 33 with no smoker parents.

The study showed that between mother and father if the mother smoked the chances of infant’s urine containing nicotine products was four times higher than in non smoking parents.

If the father was smoking the chances of having nicotine products in the urine of the infant was two times than of a non smoking parent.

The study also showed that sleeping with smoker parents or sleeping in lower temperature rooms was associated with increased nicotine products in the urine of the infants.

Higher nicotine products in the urine were also observed in colder times of the year indicating more closed door smoking during this period of the year.
About HCFI: The only National Not for profit NGO, on whose mega community health education events, Govt. of India has released two National commemorative stamps and one cancellation stamp, and who has conducted one to one training on” Hands only CPR” of 50457 people since 1st November 2012.

The CPR 10 Mantra is – “within 10 minutes of death, earlier the better; at least for the next 10 minutes, longer the better; compress the centre of the chest of the dead person continuously and effectively with a speed of 10x10 i.e. 100 per minute.”