Thesis on health effects of tobacco exposure
Welcome to Anna Zettergren's defense of the thesis ”Tobacco Exposure and Health – From Fetal Life to Adulthood”.
Time: May 28, 9 a.m
Location: Eva & Georg Klein (Biomedicum), Solnavägen 9 and Zoom
Supervisor: Anna Bergström, Associate professor, Institute of Environmental Medicine
Opponent: Linnea Hedman, Associate professor, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå universitet
What is the thesis about?
"The thesis is about tobacco exposure and related health effects during the first decades of life, specifically from fetal life to the mid-twenties. The studies in the thesis cover aspects of tobacco use and cardiometabolic health in young adulthood, but also exposure to parental smoking during early life, i.e. pregnancy and infancy, and development of allergic disease and lung function up to adulthood," says Anna Zettergren, Phd student at the Institute of Environmental Medicine, KI.
Can you tell us about some interesting results?
"In the first study of the thesis, a validation study, we found that young Swedish adults reliably self-reported tobacco use, including cigarettes, snus and e-cigarettes. In the second study we found that women who used snus daily had higher body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference compared to their non-tobacco using counterparts. Also men who used more than four cans of snus per week had higher BMI."
"When we assessed exposure to parental smoking during early life, we found that children of parents who smoked during infancy had a higher risk of atopic dermatitis that lasted up to adulthood. Furthermore, both exposure to maternal smoking during pregnancy and parental smoking during infancy was associated with lower lung function up to adulthood. This was also true among those who had not smoked themselves."
What further research is needed in the area?
"In the thesis, we could not distinguish between traditional tobacco snus and the new nicotine pouches, also called white snus. This will be important for future studies, since we know very little about health effect of nicotine pouches. Another aspect that future studies will need to assess is whether secondhand exposure to new nicotine products cause similar effects on allergic disease and lung function as secondhand exposure to cigarettes. This is highly relevant, given the increase in use of new nicotine products among young adults in Sweden and other countries."