Cigarette smoke is a complex mixture of chemical compounds that are bound to aerosol particles or are free in the gas phase. Chemical compounds in tobacco can be distilled into smoke or can react to form other constituents that are then distilled to smoke. Researchers have estimated that cigarette smoke has 7,357 chemical compounds from many different classes.
Smoke from a burning cigarette is a “concentrated aerosol of liquid particles suspended in an atmosphere consisting mainly of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide”
The tobacco leaf contains many alkaloid chemicals; nicotine is the most abundant. Nicotine content varies, among other factors, by the leaf position on the tobacco stalk and also by the blend or leaf type used in a given cigarette or cigar.
Plants such as tobacco that are characterized by high alkaloid content often possess a natural pharmacologic defense against microorganisms, insects, and vertebrates. For example, nicotine is toxic to many insects and, for many years, has been extracted from tobacco for use as a commercial pesticide.
Nicotine is addictive in humans because a portion of the nicotine molecule is similar to acetylcholine, an important brain neurotransmitter.
The alkaloids in tobacco leaf include anatabine, anabasine, nornicotine, N-methylanabasine, anabaseine, nicotine, nicotine N′-oxide, myosmine, β-nicotyrine, cotinine, and 2,3′-bipyridyl.
average levels of tar, nicotine, and CO per liter of smoke and per cigarette were determined for 10 brands of cigarettes smoked under 27 machine-smoking conditions.Yields per cigarette were highly variable across smoking conditions, because of differences in the total volume of smoke. The results of a simple linear regression analysis indicated that up to 95 percent of the variation in tar yield per cigarette could be explained by variation in the total volume of smoke produced per cigarette.
Smoking is highly injurious to health.
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