14 DAY TRIAL // The smoke people inhale when indulging in one or more cigarettes is bad for their health. The secondhand smoke that people who don't even like cigarettes are sometimes exposed to is also harmful.
It turns out there is also such a thing as thirdhand smoke, and that the health risks associated with it are not to be ignored either.
Specialists working with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory explain that this thirdhand smoke is basically the noxious residue that gets dispersed into the environment whenever somebody lights up.
The residue tends to cling to various objects, and constitutes a health threat to whomever comes in contact with these surfaces.
More precisely, it has been documented to trigger DNA damage in human cells and could cause some people to develop cancer.
“This is the very first study to find that thirdhand smoke is mutagenic. Tobacco-specific nitrosamines, some of the chemical compounds in thirdhand smoke, are among the most potent carcinogens there are.”
“They stay on surfaces, and when those surfaces are clothing or carpets, the danger to children is especially serious,” researcher Lara Gundel reportedly explained.
The paper detailing how thirdhand smoke affects people was recently published in the journal Mutagenesis.