TSNA content in Cigarettes?

[TheOneandOnly]

Does anyone know of any figures that show TSNA numbers in a pack of cigarettes? or per cigarette? I just curious to see how much higher they are than lets say.. american dip.

[justintempler]

http://www.starscientific.com/404/st...0tsna%20in.pdf

http://cro.sagepub.com/cgi/content/full/15/5/252/T2

[sheilalynn]

According to the chart on the link to the webpage (not the pdf), Marlboro has a total TSNA of 6, but Bruton Dry Snuff has 1219? I thought nasal snuff had lower TSNAs than cigarettes? Even the Scotch they have listed is 65.

[justintempler]

sheilalynn,

There was a note on snuffhouse that said they were retested with lower numbers but I can't find real data yet.

Dry Snuff has 2 problems, it is normally fire cured and it is fermented, both of those raise TSNAs

[justintempler]

http://www.tobaccoprogram.org/pdf/4f...239b09c5db.pdf

from page 155

Some of the best evidence for a carcinogenic effect of smokeless tobacco in the United States comes from a study by Winn and colleagues.17 This case-control study focused on women in North Carolina, USA and found that white never smoking women who used oral dry snuff powder had a relative risk of over 4.2 (2.6–6.7) for developing oral and pharyngeal cancer. Women who had used dry snuff for 50 years had a 50-fold increase in risk for some oral cancers. It should be noted that only a tiny minority of smokeless users use this type of tobacco in the United States. The data in Table 8.3 also suggest that some forms of dry snuff have much higher concentrations of carcinogens than any other smokeless products.

[justintempler]

http://cro.sagepub.com/cgi/content/full/15/5/252

.....
The most surprising results involved dry snuff products, which had TSNA levels from 41 to 1219 ppm. Two of the products, Red Seal and Bruton, had higher levels than any previously published (1096 and 1219, respectively). These levels were confirmed by independent analysis from a second laboratory.
......
[NB: Two dry snuff products with atypically high TSNA levels were re-tested in June, 2004. TSNA levels were as follows (parts per million, dry weight):
Red Seal: NNN-3.7; NNK-0.8; NAT-1.3; NAB-0.2; Total TSNAs-6.0
Bruton: NNN-5.6; NNK-2.2; NAT-1.9; NAB-0.3; Total TSNAs-10.0]

[chainsnuser]

Re: TSNA content in Cigarettes?

The numbers are pretty much useless, because the TSNA's are with some certainty not the main cancer causers in cigarettes, at least not in their uncombusted form.

I doubt that anyone knows what exactly causes cancer in smokers, but if one thing is for sure than that smoking is at least 10 times more harmful than even the most TSNA-laden smokeless tobacco. Medicine appears to be a science that is full of uncertainties, but in case of smoking the statistics speak for themselves. While we get annoyed every day by moronic anti-smokeless-propaganda, the anti smoking-propaganda is far from being total nonsense (though it is, of course, often ridiculously exaggerated nowadays).

The most comprehensive scientific studies till today about smoking vs. smokeless tobacco can be found here:
http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/cont...239b09c5db.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/c...nihr_o_013.pdf

A very reader-friendly article by our valued member Dr. Brad Rodu can be found here:
http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/new...sue_detail.asp

Cheers!

[paulwall9]

I guess We all agree smokeless is the less harmful way to use tobacco!!

[sheilalynn]

So I shouldn't worry about the nose falling off then? :wink: Or should I just use whatever American ones I have (since those were the ones mentioned in the study) and then stick with the English/etc ones?

[justintempler]

So I shouldn't worry about the nose falling off then? :wink: Or should I just use whatever American ones I have (since those were the ones mentioned in the study) and then stick with the English/etc ones?

I couldn't answer that. You want a real answer shoot Brad Rodu an email.
Some of the links above are from his studies.

brad.rodu@louisville.edu

[kjoerup]

This same report makes note of a retest:

[NB: Two dry snuff products with atypically high TSNA levels were re-tested in June, 2004. TSNA levels were as follows (parts per million, dry weight):

Red Seal: NNN-3.7; NNK-0.8; NAT-1.3; NAB-0.2; Total TSNAs-6.0

Bruton: NNN-5.6; NNK-2.2; NAT-1.9; NAB-0.3; Total TSNAs-10.0]

http://cro.sagepub.com/cgi/content/full/15/5/252#T2

One wonders why the initial test showed a total TSNAs result of 1219 for Bruton and 1096 for the Red Seal, and yet a retest (which they obviously felt necessary to carry out) yielded total TSNA levels of 6.0 and 10.0, respectively. That is a rather significant difference, to say the least!

There is nothing in this report that even attempts to explain the existence of this huge discrepancy between the two tests. I too would like to know more about the allegedly high TSNA levels of American Dry Snuff.

I would also think it important to note the relatively small quantity of nasal snuff that is typically used. The American dry snuffs average 1.15 ounces per small tin. I cannot speak for anyone else, but after nearly three months, I still have not gotten through half of the contents of a single container of Swisher Strawberry Sweet Snuff. That of course is a supplement to my daily average of 4 or 5 portions of Gotlandssnus Anise. Still, compare my snus and snuff consumption to the nearly 3 cartons of cigarettes I surely would have consumed within that time period had I continued to smoke.

(BTW, This is my first post on this forum. This is a terrific place; I'm glad I found it. Swedish snus and the occasional pinch of nasal snuff allowed me to kick a nearly 20 year smoking habit.)

[sheilalynn]

Cool, I get to say welcome first this time! :lol:

That is a huge difference in levels, makes you wonder how they ever came up with those first numbers. I know I've read in a few places that the American snuffs do have more TSNAs, but that was ridiculous in that first test.

[kjoerup]

Thank you for the welcome. That is very nice of you!

For what it's worth, this thread I found at snuffhouse.org contains some interesting (albeit unsubstantiated) information. Roderick, the proprietor of Toque Snuff, writes --

For future reference the amount of TSNA in your average American cigarette is 504.58 and the average TSNA in Toque snuff is 2.23.

http://snuffhouse.org/discussion/895/

504.58. Is this true? I have no idea. Roderick doesn't credit his source(s) in this thread.

[mlkramer]

Welcome kjoeruo!

Helluva a first post and very informative!

[kjoerup]

Thanks!

I wish I could say that what I posted was informative, but sadly it is not. What I posted appears to raise more questions than it answers. Obtaining any useful information about nasal snuff, particularly the American "Scotch" type, is nearly impossible. In fact, the Rodu and Jansson review is the only study I've encountered that has even bothered to take a look at these American snuffs. Yet I am still scratching my head over the variance between the astronomically high TSNA levels initially reported and the "retested" samples that now yield less than 1/100th of the TSNA levels that were originally cited.

I am not sure what to even make of the snuff and cigarette TSNA figures that are tossed around. The numbers are just so inconsistently all over the place, it's ridiculous. As mentioned above, Roderick Lawrie claims that his company's Toque brand averages 2.23 (parts per million, I presume), and he also says that the average American cigarette averages around 504.58 (ppm?). It would of course be of help if he would tell us where he gets these numbers.

By contrast, the Rodu and Jansson review states that the average TSNA ppm level of a typical American cigarette is 7.0.

See what I mean?

I have garnered from perusing various snuff forums that there does seem to be a renewed and growing interest in American dry snuffs amongst nasal snuff enthusiasts. I would imagine that inhaling the occasional pinch of American dry snuff is far less risky than, say, smoking an entire pack of cigarettes every day.

I do hope that Dr. Brad Rodu sees this thread. I am confident that he can answer these questions. I certainly cannot!