Ever heard of thirdhand smoke?

Every time I see a smoking zone, like in restaurants, at airports, and even outdoors, I always wonder what the thought process was in making an area for smokers. In what planet do they live on that they did not think air could move?

There are over 20 cancer-causing substances in tobacco, not to mention other substances in it that are hazardous to your health. These substances are in the air you breathe in as a smoker, and as someone who happens to be in the airwave of people who smoke.

Now, it has been revealed that you can also get these substances through a 3rd way, and it affects the rest of those left unscathed by the first and second wave of tobacco smoke.

The epic story of how tobacco industries denied their own findings that smoking can kill, can cause very serious health problems, and is addictive has only been unveiled in the last decade. Aside from the film based on this story, the World Health Organization has a public document that details this cover-up starting in the 1950s, in the words of the tobacco industry executives themselves. Still, up to now, smoking is still the “lifestyle” of many people around the world.

The main point of the story back then was the effect of tobacco on smokers themselves. Smoking will kill you – if not right away, then it will make you suffer first from so many serious diseases, including heart disease, emphysema, acute myeloid leukemia, and cancer of the mouth, esophagus, larynx, lung, stomach, kidney, bladder and pancreas.

But in 1986, a study revealed that lung cancer can be caused by secondhand smoke, and subsequent studies has extended the cancer risk of secondhand smoke to other organs, including the breast, nasal sinuses, and the cervix. 

Secondhand smoke also involuntarily exposes you to health risks, including cancer. Involuntary, because the people who get secondhand smoke did not choose this. They do not smoke themselves, but they get secondhand smoke because they live, work, or routinely pass by areas with people who smoke.

But if you think you have escaped the first two waves, there is a 3rd way that smoking can affect you adversely.

A recent study has found that thirdhand smoke finds its way into an otherwise non-smoking indoor area through residues left in smokers’ hair and garments. Thirdhand smoke also includes remnants of smoke that you get from people who passed by smoking areas. Residues can be carried and left on furniture, and other areas found indoors. These particles evaporate and interact with water particles naturally circulated by the indoor ventilation system. This could result in about 30% of the mass of water particles being contaminated by thirdhand smoke. 

That is how you end up with thirdhand smoke, even if you are not a smoker or have not stayed near a smoker. And thirdhand smoke is creating biomarkers that signify that they will damage your organs as well.

A study exposing mice on thirdhand smoke resulted in the mice having liver damage after a month’s exposure, as well as insulin resistance and increase in stress hormones. While studies on humans would yield more conclusive findings, it may make sense to assume that the compounds that kill you when you smoke tobacco directly, or get wind of it from a smoker, will also damage your health when they get taken up by indoor air. The study investigated a “no-smoking ever” classroom, and over 30% of the water particle load circulating in it was found to be thirdhand smoke.

Knowing that thirdhand smoke arises from tobacco smoke particles left everywhere, imagine how much your house, even when there are no smokers among you, would be filled with it if any of you who live there come in contact with secondhand smoke outside. If you do not smoke but frequent places where people smoke, when you come home, you bring those tobacco particles with you because they are on you. They get scooped by the indoor ventilation, travel through the ducts, and are spread all over the house or building.

This study makes those “smoking floors” in hotels nonsensical, since thirdhand smoke will eventually find a way into non-smoking floors through the same mechanism revealed by the study.

How many generations of smoke does science need to uncover before we accept that tobacco is the most dangerous natural product we have invented? – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She has written two books, “Science Solitaire” and “Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire.” You can reach her at sciencesolitaire@gmail.com.