Tobacco Testing

Over the last decade, the substantial growth potential of the tobacco industry has steadily increased, and this upward trajectory is expected to persist. While tobacco use poses a significant public health challenge, tobacco products remain largely unregulated in some countries, standing out as openly available commercial goods. Remarkably, these are also the only legally accessible products that, when consumed as recommended by manufacturers, result in the death of up to half of their regular users. Despite the severe consequences of tobacco use, only a few countries currently implement regulations on tobacco products, encompassing aspects such as production methods, product contents, and emissions during use, affecting both users and bystanders. This lack of regulation is attributed in part to the inherent challenges in regulating tobacco products, the intricate technical nature of this policy intervention, and the complexities in translating scientific findings into regulatory measures.

In many countries globally, tobacco use is synonymous with cigarette smoking. However, in India, tobacco consumption takes various forms. Broadly categorized, there are two prevalent types of tobacco products: smoking tobacco and smokeless tobacco. Smoking tobacco products encompass bidis, manufactured cigarettes, hand-rolled cigarettes, pipes, cigars, hookahs, water pipes, and other variants like chuttas, dhumti, and chillum. On the other hand, smokeless tobacco is consumed through chewing, applying to the teeth and gums, or inhalation. Common smokeless tobacco products in India include items like betel quid with tobacco, khaini, gutka, and paan masala with tobacco.

Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines (TSNA):
Tobacco consumption represents an additional source of nitrosamine exposure. Cigarette smoke is a complex mixture consisting of more than 4500 chemicals, including several tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNA). Several toxic compounds that are abundantly present in tobacco cigarette smoke, such as tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrates, phenols and carbon monoxide, are either absent or substantially lower. While nicotine is not a carcinogen, several tobacco-specific nitrosamines derived from nicotine and other tobacco alkaloids are carcinogenic in laboratory animals, a property characteristic of over 200 nitrosamines. The present study describes the development of a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) technique for the analysis of trace levels of four tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs): nitrosoanabasine (NAB), nitrosoanatabine (NAT), 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) and nitrosonornicotine (NNN). The technique can be applied for the analysis of TSNAs in USP grade nicotine.

Oxidative Stress Caused by Cigarette Smoking, Alcohol Abuse and Drug Abuse