CANCER CAUSING SUBSTANCE FOUND EVEN IN SMOKELESS TOBACCO !

Scientists have identified a substance in smokeless tobacco that is a strong oral carcinogen, a health risk for the 9 million users of chewing tobacco, snuff and related products. 

Evidence has been accumulating for years that people who use smokeless tobacco have an increased risk of cancer of the mouth, esophagus and pancreas. Scientists also knew that smokeless tobacco users are exposed to a variety of carcinogens and experience some damage to their genetic material impairing its normal function. 

The research team identified the culprit as (S)-NNN, one of a family of hundreds of compounds called nitrosamines, most of which are carcinogenic, capable of causing cancer. Nitrosamines occur in a variety of foods, ranging from beer to bacon, and also form naturally in the stomach when people eat foods containing high levels of nitrite. But nitrosamine levels in smokeless tobacco are far higher than in food. 

To do it, they gave laboratory rats a low dose of two forms of NNN, suspected carcinogens in smokeless tobacco, for 17 months in doses roughly equivalent to a person consuming half of a tin of smokeless tobacco every day for 30 years. One substance, (S)-NNN, induced large numbers of oral and esophageal tumors in the rats. 

Smokeless tobacco is a known cause of oral cancer. Obviously, we need to decrease the levels of this material in all smokeless tobacco products — or eliminate it altogether," he suggested.