Living with parents who smoke predicts levels of toxicant exposure in children

The detrimental effect of secondhand smoke (SHS) on health is well known; due to various factors, efforts to prevent SHS cannot completely eliminate the effect of smoking substances, and SHS has not been sufficiently investigated among children. This study aimed to assess children's smoke expos...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScientific reports Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 11173 - 9
Main Author Park, Myung-Bae
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Nature Publishing Group 07.07.2020
Nature Publishing Group UK
Nature Portfolio
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Butanol
Carcinogens
Child
Children
Female
Humans
Inhalation Exposure - adverse effects
Male
Nitrosamines - toxicity
Nitrosamines - urine
Parents
Parents & parenting
Passive smoking
Smoking
Tobacco
Tobacco smoke
Tobacco Smoke Pollution - adverse effects
Tobacco Smoking - epidemiology
Toxicants
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Summary:The detrimental effect of secondhand smoke (SHS) on health is well known; due to various factors, efforts to prevent SHS cannot completely eliminate the effect of smoking substances, and SHS has not been sufficiently investigated among children. This study aimed to assess children's smoke exposure with respect to parents smoking patterns using biomarkers. This study used data from the 2016/2017 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Data pertaining to 486 subjects was extracted. Exposure to smoking among non-smoking children was assessed based on urine levels of 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol (NNAL). The urine NNAL concentration was highest among children with smoking parents and SHS exposure at home (3.829 pg/mg, 95% confidence interval [CI: 1.499-8.330), followed by children with smoking parents and no SHS exposure at home (1.297, 95% CI: 1.080-1.536), and children with nonsmoking parents and no SHS exposure at home (0.996 pg/mg, 95% CI: 1.026-1.427). Living with a smoking parent was associated with exposure to carcinogens, and a critical predictor of tobacco-specific nitrosamine. Prohibition of smoking at home is effective at preventing SHS in children. However, it cannot completely prevent passive smoking, which might be attributable to thirdhand smoking and undetected secondhand smoke.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-020-66920-y