Do bacteria in cigarettes cause infections?
A publication in Environmental Health Perspectives this month challenges a long-held assumption about tobacco and infections. People assumed that the reason smokers get a lot of respiratory infections was because the smoke was suppressing their immune systems. Probably another reason is now evident: tons of bacteria live on tobacco, and you inhale these when you light up and take a puff! This report in Wired Science slightly blew my mind. These researchers sequenced the DNA in tobacco from cigarettes, and found genetic material from many different human pathogens. I tried to find the paper in the source journal, but it isn’t up on the website yet. Shame on Wired Science for breaking embargo on the story, but it is interesting that we could have overlooked this link for so long. Actually, the same group published this paper “Human Pathogens Abundant in the Bacterial Metagenome of Cigarettes” in October 2009. Wow. Here’s a wild thought: perhaps tobacco causes cancer because all of this e
