Correlation between urinary nicotine, cotinine and self-reported smoking status among educated young adults

2009

Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology. Volume 28, Issue 1, July 2009, Pages 92-96

Correlation between urinary nicotine, cotinine and self-reported smoking status among educated young adults

Man, C.N.,
Fathelrahman, A.I.,
Harn, G.L.,
Lajis, R.,
Samin, A.S.M.,
Omar, M.,
Awang, R.,
Bayanuddin, N.A.

The objective of this study was to correlate, differentiate and validate the self-reported smoking status of educated young adults with urinary biomarkers (i.e. nicotine and cotinine).

Freshmen students were recruited on voluntary basis. They filled-up self-administered questionnaire and their urine samples were collected for analysis. The urinary nicotine (UN) and cotinine (UC) were measured by gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry. Smokers, non-smokers and ex-smokers were found to be both significantly correlated and different in their UN and UC levels. UC level of 25 ng/ml was the optimal cut-off to differentiate smokers from non-smokers. Using this cut-off value, the prevalence of smoking among the students was found to be higher (15.4%) than the self-reported data (14.3%).

UC is useful in validating individual recent smoking history and the cut-off could serve as a marker for assessing the clinical impact of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure on human health.