(ORDO NEWS) — Surely you have already heard about the negative impact of active and passive smoking on your lungs and other internal organs.
Scientists have come to another conclusion: tobacco smoke can be absorbed into your clothes or furniture and walls (if you smoke indoors), and this can provoke the appearance of some skin diseases.
Tobacco smoke that has penetrated deep into surfaces can remain there for months or even years.
A new study has found that tobacco smoke residue on clothing can increase biomarkers associated with inflammation, mimicking the mechanisms of skin disease.
Research progress
The experiment involved 10 non-smokers aged 22 to 45 years: the researchers asked each of them to wear clothes soaked in tobacco smoke for three hours.
They were also given a condition – to spend 15 minutes on a treadmill every hour, so that more particles of tobacco smoke enter the body through the skin with sweat.
After taking blood and urine samples, the team found that biomarkers indicating oxidative DNA damage were elevated. Changes in the levels of proteins in the blood have also been found.
Moreover, these changes persisted up to 22 hours after the experiment. Such reactions were not recorded when the same 10 participants wore clean clothes during another test.
“Our experiment with exposure to tobacco smoke from clothes did not cause skin irritation, however, markers associated with the early stage of activation of contact dermatitis, psoriasis and other skin diseases were increased,” the scientists said in their report.
Results
Although none of the participants in the study showed obvious changes in the state of the skin or general health, early signs of the body’s response to tobacco in this form already exist and require further study.
The researchers suggest that the skin may be most at risk from surface-absorbed tobacco smoke because it is the largest organ we have.
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