Light Cigarettes Just as Bad

(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Smokers who think they are getting fewer cancer-causing substances from smoking “light” or “ultra-light” cigarettes are just fooling themselves, report researchers who looked at tobacco byproducts in the urine samples of smokers. Researchers from the University of Minnesota Cancer Center in Minneapolis found no difference in the amount of these dangerous byproducts in smokers’ urine, regardless of the type of cigarettes they smoked. Nor did they see any differences in the levels of cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine. “We found no statistically significant differences in levels of these substances in smokers of regular, light, and ultra-light cigarettes,” says Stephen Hecht, Ph.D., lead author of the study. “If there is no difference in toxin levels, then there is no difference in the harmful effects of the cigarettes.” How can cigarette companies market brands as light or ultra-light if they still deliver as many cancer-causing substances as regular cigarettes? The authors blame the situation on the federal government’s antiquated method of classifying cigarettes, which is based on levels of tar in the different brands rather than the levels of toxins that end up in a smoker’s body. The current study involved 175 smokers who filled out a survey about which types of cigarettes they smoked and then gave urine samples. Researchers tested for two specific markers of cancer-causing substances found in tobacco smoke along with the nicotine byproduct cotinine.