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New Delhi, May 17: Smoke from cigarettes [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], diesel and burning trees contains a chemical similar to the gas that had leaked from a pesticide factory in Bhopal in 1984 and has been implicated in heart disease, cataract, and rheumatoid arthritis, US scientists said today.
The researchers found isocyanic acid in the atmosphere over several places -— over Los Angeles and in the air downwind of a wildfire in Colorado. They said exhausts from a set of diesel engines may also contain the chemical.
“It dissolves readily in water, which means that humans can be exposed directly if it gets into eyes or lungs,” said James Roberts, a chemist with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the study’s lead author.
The researchers relied on previously published findings of tobacco burning to calculate that a smoker may consume 36 to 108 micrograms of isocyanic acid, depending on the kind of filters used in the cigarette.
Isocyanic acid has a structure similar to methyl isocyanate, the chemical that leaked from the Bhopal pesticide factory in 1984.
Although the health effects caused by the exposure to isocyanic acid are not known, the chemical appears to be involved in processes that lead to cataract or inflammation that can lead to coronary artery disease as well as rheumatoid arthritis.
In the early 1990s, Dorairajan Balasubramanian and his colleagues at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad had shown that a set of chemicals generated by smoke can damage proteins that make up the lens in eyes and can lead to cataract.
The researchers who developed an instrument to measure gaseous acids in the atmosphere have found traces of the chemical called isocyanic acid that is produced during the burning of plant materials [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], biofuels and tobacco.
“We didn’t look at specific constituents of the smoke but had measured the extent of damage that certain chemicals associated with the smoke can cause to the lens proteins [link widoczny dla zalogowanych],” Balasubramanian said.
Their studies indicate that isocyanic acid at one part per billion by volume could dissolve in exposed tissues such as lungs and eyes. Such exposure could make tissues vulnerable to a process called protein carbamylation that could cause damage.
Isocyanic acid makes a significant contribution to smoke-related health impacts, the scientists said [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], describing their findings in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
They said isocyanic acid from tobacco needs to be measured and quantified because this chemical is currently not included in a list of harmful or potentially harmful constituents in tobacco products and tobacco smoke drawn up by the US Food and Drugs Administration.