Very few people know that there is such as a thing as "thirdhand smoke," let alone its negative effects. Thirdhand smoke is the exhaled smoke that can make its way on furniture and clothing. While this smoke seems harmless enough, a new study shows otherwise.
If smoking directly and secondhand smoke are associated with lung problems and more, thirdhand smoke is also linked with negative effects. In particular, a study found that thirdhand smoke can have long term effects on a person's body.
Getting a whiff of a friend's jacket or hair reeking of that stale cigarette smell may sometimes feel familiar and comfortable for you occasionally, but the research warns that this is harmful to your body's capacity to produce insulin. This means that thirdhand smoke is associated with the development of Type 2 diabetes.
Thirdhand smoke develops insulin resistance, which can lead to glucose buildup. According to the lead researchers, children are more prone to thirdhand smoke, because they love to touch their parents' clothing, hair and crawl around. Even if you are checked in at a non-smoking room, if you change out of your clothes after a night out, you can still be exposed to thirdhand smoke. "
Thirdhand smoke is the accumulation of secondhand smoke on environmental surfaces," the authors write in the abstract. "THS is found on the clothing and hair of smokers as well as on surfaces in homes and cars of smokers. Exposure occurs by ingestion, inhalation and dermal absorption." They go on to note that children are often at a higher risk of being exposed to thirdhand smoke because "they crawl on the floor, touch parents' clothing/hair and household objects."
Earlier studies that looked at thirdhand smoke also said that it is linked with many negative health conditions, such as asthma attacks, allergic reactions, and even cancer. The scary thing is that this smoke can even linger up to two decades.
