Study on the daily Ad Libitum smoking habits of active Korean smokers and their effect on urinary smoking exposure and impact biomarkers

Abstract

Introduction

Understanding interactions of smoking topography with biomarkers of exposure to tobacco is essential for accurate smoking risk assessments.

Methods

In this study, the smoking topography and the levels of tobacco smoke exposure urinary biomarkers of a sample of active Korean smokers were quantified and measured. The results were used to investigate the effect of daily activities and smoking time on the smoking topography. Moreover, correlations between the smoking topography parameters and biomarkers were assessed.

Results

No significant effect of either the daily activities or time on the smoking topography of the subjects were observed. Synchronic correlations of the cigarette consumption per day (CPD) and the average flow per puff with both urinary cotinine and trans-3’-hydroxycotinine were significant. For the urinary nicotine metabolites, the peak levels appeared when the CPD was over 19 cigarettes per day and the average puff velocity was between 35 and 45 ml/s. Nevertheless, when the average flow was over 60 ml/s, the levels of cotinine and trans-3’-hydroxycotinine significantly dropped.

Conclusions

The findings of this study may be beneficial for further smoking risk assessments with contributions of both the smoking topography and biomarkers to provide current smokers with applicable cession programs.

Clinical significance

• Smoking habits and levels of urinary biomarkers of Korean smokers are investigated.

• People with a higher dependency on nicotine smoke cigarettes with slower puffs.

• Effects of daily activities or time on smoking topography were not significant.

• Correlations between smoking topography and urinary biomarkers were significant.

• Peak biomarker levels were observed under certain smoking topography conditions.

Keywords:

• Biomarker analysis
• cotinine
• NNAL
• smoking exposure urinary biomarkers
• smoking topography
• trans-3’-hydroxycotinine

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Program funded by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (fund code 2019-E6704-00).