A comprehensive evaluation of the toxicology of cigarette ingredients: aromatic and aliphatic alcohol compounds

Abstract

Context: Various aromatic and aliphatic alcohol compounds are found in tobacco and tobacco smoke.

Objective: A battery of tests was used to compare the toxicity of mainstream smoke from experimental cigarettes containing eight aromatic and aliphatic alcohol compounds that were added individually to experimental cigarettes at three different levels. The lowest target inclusion level was 100 ppm and the highest level was 24,400 ppm.

Materials and methods: Mainstream smoke from each of the cigarette types was evaluated using analytical chemistry and assays to measure in vitro cytotoxicity (neutral red uptake) and Salmonella (five strains) mutagenicity. For three of the compounds (benzyl alcohol, propyl paraben, and rum flavor), 90-day smoke inhalation studies with 6-week recovery periods were also performed using rats.

Results: Inclusion of eugenol produced several dose-related reductions in concentrations of selected smoke constituents. Cytotoxicity and mutagenicity were unaffected by any of the test ingredients, except for dose-related reductions in cytotoxicity of the gas vapor phase produced by the inclusion of eugenol. The three smoke inhalation studies showed a few sporadic differences between the groups and there were no differences in the patterns of recovery for any of the ingredients.

Conclusions: Despite using exaggerated inclusion levels of the eight aliphatic and aromatic alcohol compounds in experimental cigarettes, there was minimal toxicological response, which is consistent with published reports of studies using mixtures of compounds added to tobacco.

Keywords::

• Cigarette ingredients
• aromatic and aliphatic alcohol compounds
• smoke chemistry
• in-vitro and in-vivo toxicology

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the study directors at the IIT Research Institute and at PMRL, as well as Edward L. Carmines, Mark A. Higuchi, Stephanie U. Knighten, Ranulfo Lemus, and Lisa M. Merriman. The authors also acknowledge the editorial assistance of Eileen Y. Ivasauskas of Accuwrit Inc.

Declaration of interest

C.R.E. Coggins is a consultant for Altria Client Services and as such was compensated for his contribution to this work.