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Secondhand smoke is more dangerous than thought
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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A research team led by A.K. Rajasekaran, director of the Newmore Children's Cancer Center (USA), has shown that a key protein involved in cellular functions and cellular regulation is blocked by a substance present in cigarette smoke. Food for thought for gentlemen smokers is presented in the American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cell and Molecular Physiology.
It is not proven today that tobacco smoke is one of the causes of lung cancer, and is also associated with many other forms of cancer in adults. It contains more than four thousand components, many of which are associated with the development and progression of lung cancer. But new data clearly demonstrates that passive smoking is just as dangerous as just smoking, and all due to the effect that smoke components have on the body's cells.
The study found that cancer-causing agents called reactive oxygen species (ROS), which tend to inhibit normal cellular functions, are present in abundance in the gas phase of cigarette smoke. Inhaling the smoke produced by just two cigarettes almost completely shuts down the cellular sodium-potassium pump for several hours, potentially causing cell damage or premature destruction.
Thus, it is more than clearly demonstrated that if not adults themselves, then at least children should be protected from cigarette smoke. Frequent passive smoking in childhood with an adored daddy in the kitchen can provoke the development of lung cancer in adulthood. And although more research will be needed to understand all the consequences of inhibition of the sodium pump by components of cigarette smoke, it is clear that passive smoking is even more dangerous than previously thought.
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