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DCL
As if we don't talk about the down sides of cigarettes and bottled water enough here, here's one more for each.
American smokers inhale more carcinogens with their cigarettes than do smokers in Canada, Britain, and Australia, according to a recent study showing how the levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines vary from country to country. Also interesting? The carcinogen levels in cigarette butts correlate directly with "tell-tale compounds" in the smoker's urine.
The cigarette butts tested, including from such popular brands as Marlboro, Camels, and Newports, were all tested for nicotine and chemicals known as tobacco-specific nitrosamines, or TSNAs, and the subjects who used the tested cigarettes were tested for the breakdown product of one of the TSNAs in the body, called NNAL.
"We have shown a direct association between the 24-hour mouth-level exposure of NNK resulting from cigarette smoking and the concentration of its primary metabolite, NNAL, in the urine of smokers," the researchers wrote.
"Internal dose concentrations of urinary NNAL are significantly lower in smokers in countries that have lower TSNA levels in cigarettes such as Canada and Australia in contrast to countries that have high levels of these carcinogens in cigarettes, such as the United States."
As for bottled water, a recent study of Canadian brands showed "surprisingly high" levels of heterotrophic bacteria.
The Vancouver Sun reports that more than 70 percent of popular brands tested did not meet the standards U.S. Pharmacopeia standards, an NGO that sets safety standards for medications and health products.
Those standards set the drinking water limit at 500 colony forming units (cfu) of bacteria per ML, but levels were "found to be in revolting figures of (100) times more than the permitted limit," said Sonish Azam, one of the researchers, with some brands containing as much as 70,000 cfu per millilitre.
The bacteria found do not pose health risks—unless you are pregnant, a child, or elderly—but if it's cleaner and easier on the environment, why not just stick to tap?
