previous literature has implicated that there might be an individual susceptibility difference in terms of race/ethnicity and gender in response to second hand smoke (shs) exposure. this study was done to examine the effect of shs exposure on lung function in non-smoking korean women.this cross-sectional study was conducted using the korea national health and nutrition examination survey (knhan...

Urinary cotinine, one of the main metabolites of nicotine, has been widely used as a biomarker for assessment of direct or passive exposure to cigarette smoke. However, there is wide variation of the cotinine level among smokers who smoke the same number of cigarettes. To use urinary cotinine as a proper exposure-biomarker for cigarette smoke, interindividual variations of cotinine formation mu...

BACKGROUND The objectives of this study were to determine urinary cotinine concentrations in non-smoking residents of smoke-free homes and to establish the relationship of urinary cotinine with housing type and other socio-demographic and secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure factors. METHODS We used data from the Korean National Environmental Health Survey I (2009-2011). The study included 814 non...

OBJECTIVE Smoking has been reported to harm nearly every organ of the body, but conflicting results have been reported regarding the effects of smoking on assisted conception. In this prospective cohort study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of positive urinary cotinine tests in infertile couples and whether cotinine positivity was associated with infertility treatment outcomes. METHOD...

PURPOSE This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the association between self-reported exposure status to second-hand smoke and urinary cotinine level in pregnant nonsmokers. MATERIALS AND METHODS We recruited pregnant nonsmokers from the prenatal care clinics of a university hospital and two community health centers, and their urinary cotinine concentrations were measured. RESULTS Among...

INTRODUCTION Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is thought to increase the severity and number of attacks in wheezy children. Objective assessments are needed to change the behavior of families to reduce the exposure of wheezy children to ETS. AIM To determine whether informing families about their children's urinary cotinine levels curtailed the exposure of children to ETS. MATERIAL AND MET...

OBJECTIVES This study was conducted to validate self-reported smoking among high school students using urinary cotinine. METHODS A self report of smoking behavior was collected together with urine sample for cotinine analysis from 130 male and female students in two vocational high school students in November, 2007. Validity and agreement between self-reported smoking and urinary cotinine was...

BACKGROUND Although nicotine dependence plays a role as a main barrier for smoking cessation, there is still a lack of solid evidence on the validity of biomarkers to determine nicotine dependence in clinical settings. This study aimed to investigate whether urinary cotinine levels could reflect the severity of nicotine dependence in active smokers. MATERIALS AND METHODS Data regarding genera...

The report by Apseloff et al.’ and your editorial’ are both timely and provocative. These articles propose that positive urinary cotinine levels indicate some tobacco smokers lie that they are nonsmokers. There is no doubt that tobacco smoking is the major contributing factor to urinary cotinine levels. A still-unexplored issue that necessitates further research is what are other sources of nic...

Human biomonitoring of plasma and urinary levels of nicotine, cotinine, and 3'-hydroxycotinine was conducted after daily cigarette smoking in a population of 92 male Japanese smokers with a mean age of 37 years who had smoked an average of 23 cigarettes per day for 16 years. Members of the population were genotyped for the nicotine-metabolizing enzyme cytochrome P450 2A6 (CYP2A6). The mean leve...