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Airborne Nicotine Concentrations in the Workplaces of Tobacco Farmers

OBJECTIVES: Nicotine is a natural alkaloid and insecticide in tobacco leaves. Green tobacco sickness (GTS) is known as a disease of acute nicotine intoxication among tobacco farmers. Until now, GTS has been recognized globally as a disease that results from nicotine absorption through the skin. Howe...

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Autores principales: Yoo, Seok-Ju, Park, Sung-Jun, Kim, Byoung-Seok, Lee, Kwan, Lim, Hyun-Sul, Kim, Jik-Su, Kim, In-Shik
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Korean Society for Preventive Medicine 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4050211/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24921017
http://dx.doi.org/10.3961/jpmph.2014.47.3.144
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author Yoo, Seok-Ju
Park, Sung-Jun
Kim, Byoung-Seok
Lee, Kwan
Lim, Hyun-Sul
Kim, Jik-Su
Kim, In-Shik
author_facet Yoo, Seok-Ju
Park, Sung-Jun
Kim, Byoung-Seok
Lee, Kwan
Lim, Hyun-Sul
Kim, Jik-Su
Kim, In-Shik
author_sort Yoo, Seok-Ju
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: Nicotine is a natural alkaloid and insecticide in tobacco leaves. Green tobacco sickness (GTS) is known as a disease of acute nicotine intoxication among tobacco farmers. Until now, GTS has been recognized globally as a disease that results from nicotine absorption through the skin. However, we assumed that GTS might also result from nicotine inhalation as well as absorption. We aimed to measure the airborne nicotine concentrations in various work environments of Korean tobacco farmers. METHODS: We measured the nicotine concentrations in the tobacco fields, private curing barns, and joint curing barns of farmers from July to October 2010. All sampling and analyses of airborne nicotine were conducted according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health manual of analytic methods. RESULTS: The airborne nicotine concentrations (geometric mean [geometric standard deviation]) in the tobacco field were 83.4 mg/m(3) (1.2) in the upper region and 93.3 mg/m(3) (1.2) in the lower region. In addition, the nicotine concentration by personal sampling was 150.1 mg/m(3). Similarly, the nicotine concentrations in the private curing barn, workers in curing barns, the front yard of the curing barn, and in the joint curing barn were 323.7 mg/m(3) (2.0), 121.0 mg/m(3) (1.5), 73.7 mg/m(3) (1.7), and 610.3 mg/m(3) (1.0), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The nicotine concentration in the workplaces of tobacco farmers was very high. Future studies should measure the environmental concentration of nicotine that is inhaled by tobacco farmers.
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spelling pubmed-40502112014-06-11 Airborne Nicotine Concentrations in the Workplaces of Tobacco Farmers Yoo, Seok-Ju Park, Sung-Jun Kim, Byoung-Seok Lee, Kwan Lim, Hyun-Sul Kim, Jik-Su Kim, In-Shik J Prev Med Public Health Original Article OBJECTIVES: Nicotine is a natural alkaloid and insecticide in tobacco leaves. Green tobacco sickness (GTS) is known as a disease of acute nicotine intoxication among tobacco farmers. Until now, GTS has been recognized globally as a disease that results from nicotine absorption through the skin. However, we assumed that GTS might also result from nicotine inhalation as well as absorption. We aimed to measure the airborne nicotine concentrations in various work environments of Korean tobacco farmers. METHODS: We measured the nicotine concentrations in the tobacco fields, private curing barns, and joint curing barns of farmers from July to October 2010. All sampling and analyses of airborne nicotine were conducted according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health manual of analytic methods. RESULTS: The airborne nicotine concentrations (geometric mean [geometric standard deviation]) in the tobacco field were 83.4 mg/m(3) (1.2) in the upper region and 93.3 mg/m(3) (1.2) in the lower region. In addition, the nicotine concentration by personal sampling was 150.1 mg/m(3). Similarly, the nicotine concentrations in the private curing barn, workers in curing barns, the front yard of the curing barn, and in the joint curing barn were 323.7 mg/m(3) (2.0), 121.0 mg/m(3) (1.5), 73.7 mg/m(3) (1.7), and 610.3 mg/m(3) (1.0), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The nicotine concentration in the workplaces of tobacco farmers was very high. Future studies should measure the environmental concentration of nicotine that is inhaled by tobacco farmers. The Korean Society for Preventive Medicine 2014-05 2014-05-30 /pmc/articles/PMC4050211/ /pubmed/24921017 http://dx.doi.org/10.3961/jpmph.2014.47.3.144 Text en Copyright © 2014 The Korean Society for Preventive Medicine http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Yoo, Seok-Ju
Park, Sung-Jun
Kim, Byoung-Seok
Lee, Kwan
Lim, Hyun-Sul
Kim, Jik-Su
Kim, In-Shik
Airborne Nicotine Concentrations in the Workplaces of Tobacco Farmers
title Airborne Nicotine Concentrations in the Workplaces of Tobacco Farmers
title_full Airborne Nicotine Concentrations in the Workplaces of Tobacco Farmers
title_fullStr Airborne Nicotine Concentrations in the Workplaces of Tobacco Farmers
title_full_unstemmed Airborne Nicotine Concentrations in the Workplaces of Tobacco Farmers
title_short Airborne Nicotine Concentrations in the Workplaces of Tobacco Farmers
title_sort airborne nicotine concentrations in the workplaces of tobacco farmers
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4050211/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24921017
http://dx.doi.org/10.3961/jpmph.2014.47.3.144
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