Adverse Health Consequences of Tobacco Snuff

Background and Objective: Tobacco snuff is one form of smokeless tobacco usually blended with potash which is either sniffed or eaten and its long term use adversely affects the overall well being of users. Hence, this study was designed to investigate the effect of tobacco snuff consumption on plasma sodium and potassium levels.

Materials and Methods: Forty two adult wistar rats weighing 150-300 g were involved in the experiment. The rats were divided into four experimental groups of A, B, C and D. Groups B, C and D represent the test groups while group A represents control group. The test groups were further divided into experimental phases/durations of 2 weeks (B1, C1 and D1), 4 weeks (B2, C2 and D2), 6 weeks (B3, C3 and D3) and 8 weeks (B4, C4 and D4) and they received varying doses of tobacco snuff. The control group (A) received feed pallets and water ad libitum. At the end of each experimental phase, blood samples were collected from randomly selected rats from each group.

Results: Noticeable alterations in plasma sodium and potassium levels were observed across the test groups and the alterations increased with the dosage of tobacco snuff, though decrease with duration in some test groups. This no statistically significant alterations show imbalance in sodium and potassium level of the study.

Conclusions: The current result of this study showed that tobacco snuff causes imbalance in sodium and potassium levels that are dose and duration dependent.

Source: Journal of Medical Sciences, 22: 61-65