Smokeless Tobacco More Effective than Cigarettes for Delivering Dangerous Carcinogens

Some well meaning individuals have been touting smokless tobacco as a relatively danger free alternative to cigarettes. Now from the American Cancer Society we find that It may not be inhaled into the lungs, but smokeless tobacco exposes users to some of the same potent carcinogens as cigarettes. In the August issue of Cancer Epidemiology, researchers at the University of Minnesota Cancer Center Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, report that users of smokeless tobacco are exposed to higher amounts of tobacco-specific nitrosamines -- molecules that are known to be carcinogenic -- than smokers.