An-Najah Staff

Throughsmoking, important flux of heavy metals and many other toxins reaches smokers ' lungs. This project reports the heavy metal concentrations in tobacco from samples of 25 cigarette products, sold in Palestine. Cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) contents were determined in 25 brands of tobacco cigarette commonly available in Palestine by flam atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The concentration of trace metals in the cigarettes ranged, Cd: from 0.85 to 2.11 μg/g with mean 1.20±0.15 μg/g, Pb: 2.21 to 5.06 μg/g with mean 3.12±1.33 μg/g, Co: 0.18 to 2.61 μg/g with mean 1.09±0.28 μg/g, Ni: 3.42 to 6.23 μg/g with mean 4.92±0.53 μg/g, Cu: 11.86 to 20.35 μg/g with mean 15.21±0.34 μg/g, and Zn: 30.55 to 114.43 μg/g with mean 51.15±0.14 μg/g.
Comparable results of trace metals are obtained in both imported and Palestinian cigarettes. The average trace metal contents of cigarettes available and sold in Palestine are Cd:0.82 μg/cigarette with range (0.60– 1.70) μg/cigarette, Pb: 2.13 μg/cigarette with range (1.41 – 3.54) μg/cigarette, Co: 0.74 μg/cigarette with range (0.12– 2.02) μg/cigarette, Ni: 3.37μg/cigarette with range (2.57– 5.66) μg/cigarette  Cu: 10.42 μg/cigarette with range ( 7.80– 20.11) μg/cigarette, Zn: 35.02μg/cigarette with range (20.10- 88.80)μg/cigarette. The results indicate that smoking and exposure to cigarette smoke is a serious problem to be taken into account when carrying out epidemiological studies on human exposure to trace metals.