Evaluation of the potential effects of ingredients added to cigarettes. Part 2: Chemical composition of mainstream smoke

Cigarette mainstream smoke from blended research cigarettes with and without the addition of ingredients was analyzed for its chemical composition. In total, 333 ingredients commonly used in cigarette manufacturing were assigned to three different groups. Each group of ingredients was introduced at a low and a high level to the test cigarettes. The list of the 51 smoke constituents determined is based on those analytes suggested for analysis in a US Consumer Product Safety Commission proposal for low ignition cigarettes and cigarette smoke constituents identified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as worthy of concern and characterized as carcinogens. An increase in the yield of total particulate matter (TPM) in the range of 13 to 28% relative to the control cigarette without ingredients was observed for all test cigarettes. This was presumably caused by the higher transfer rates of the added ingredients to the smoke compared to the transfer from the tobacco part of the filler. When the yields of individual constituents were normalized to the TPM yields, a reduction in the majority of the constituents was observed when compared to the control. For one of the ingredient groups this reduction was especially high: for phenols a maximum of 70%, for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons 50%, and for N-nitrosamines 45%. An increase in the amount relative to TPM was observed for a few smoke constituents: hydrogen cyanide and cadmium (one ingredient group), formaldehyde (one ingredient group), and resorcinol and lead (two ingredient groups). These results are consistent with the lack of any increased activity in the in vitro and in vivo assays in this same series of studies (Food and Chemical Toxicology 2002, 40, 105–111; Food and Chemical Toxicology 2002, 40, 113–131). An overall assessment of our data suggests that these ingredients, when added to the tobacco, do not add to the toxicity of smoke, even at the elevated levels tested in this series of studies.