More on the Nicotine Content of Vegetables

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Abstract
Domino et al. (Aug. 5 issue)1 suggest that nicotine obtained from the consumption of vegetables could complicate the interpretation of studies of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke based on the detection of nicotine or its metabolite cotinine. The crux of their argument was that typical levels of vegetable consumption could result in an exposure to nicotine equivalent to that from inhalation of air with “a low concentration of nicotine from tobacco smoke.” In fact, exposure to the 1 μg of nicotine that Domino et al. predicted could be absorbed from such tobacco smoke is so low that it would not produce systemic levels of nicotine or cotinine detectable by any of the techniques currently used to assess such exposure. The main problem with the inferences in these authors' letter is a 500-fold error in the calculations used to determine the vegetable equivalent of toxicologically meaningful exposure to tobacco smoke.

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