Dipping snuff can be more dangerous than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, according to a study published Wednesday.
"Snuff use is not a safe alternative to tobacco smoking," researchers say in a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.An analysis of the five leading U.S. brands of moist snuff finds that a snuff dipper can be exposed to more than twice as much of a strong carcinogen as a 20-cigarette-a-day smoker.
Twenty cigarettes deliver about 16.2 micrograms of carcinogenic nitrosamines, while "a snuff dipper who consumes an average of 10 grams of snuff per day is exposed to 24 to 46 micrograms of the strong carcinogenic TSNAs (tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines)," the study said.
The study, led by researchers at the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, N.Y., conducted a chemical analysis of moist snuff and found that of the five best-selling brands, the most popular have the highest content of nicotine and of cancer-causing chemicals.
Snuff brands Copenhagen, Skoal fine cut and Kodiak had "statistically significant higher levels of nicotine" than did Hawken and Skoal Bandits, the fourth and fifth most popular brands, the study found.
Copenhagen, Skoal fine cut and Kodiak account for 92 percent of the U.S. snuff market. Hawken and Skoal Bandits account for 3 percent.
"These data and the sales figures support the concept that the product design may be aimed at creating and maintaining nicotine dependence," the study said. The researchers said other studies suggest that "snuff dippers initially use brands with low nicotine dosage and then switch to brands with high nicotine dosage."
Brands with high nicotine, the researchers report, also have the highest levels of TSNAs, which have been shown in a number of laboratory studies to be powerful cancer-causing chemicals.
An industry spokesman dis-a-greed.
Alan Hilburg of the Smokeless Tobacco Council said the methods of the study "were suspect" and that the results consisted of "nothing new" and "a lot of data that they've repackaged."
TSNAs, he said, "have not been found to cause disease in humans."
In an editorial in the journal, Dr. Scott L. Tomar of the Centers for Disease Control and Dr. Jack E. Henningfield of the National Institutes of Health said that there is a strong association between smokeless tobacco and cancers of the mouth and throat.