Transcript of Smokeless Tobacco video, BAT Science
Chris Proctor, Head of Science and Regulation:
We are relatively new to smokeless tobacco products. We have a long history of trying to understand cigarettes but smokeless tobacco products are quite new to us. So our research programme over the last few years has been more fundamental, trying to understand the chemistry of the products, understand how you might extract those products to understand any of the biological effects that may be associated with them.
We're also focussed particularly on a type of smokeless product called Snus, it comes from Sweden and as part of its process it is heat treated which stops an additional formation of toxicants such as tobacco-specific nitrosamines.
Voiceover
In order to research Snus we have built a pilot plant which allows us to make quantities of Snus on a research scale. Snus is manufactured under food hygiene standards in a process that includes a heat treatment step similar to pasteurisation which inhibits bacterial activity that would otherwise cause additional nitrosamine formation.
One of our recent studies has been to monitor the levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines in Snus stored under a variety of different temperature and humidity conditions and time periods. We investigated four types of Snus stored for up to 24 weeks.
Tobacco specific nitrosamines in the Snus tobacco are extracted into methanol using sonification followed by centrifuging. Aliquots of the extract are then analysed using liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry. This initial research on storage found that the levels of tobacco specific nitrosamines did not increase over the time of the study, whether the samples were kept cold or warm.
There is relatively little published research on analytical methods for the chemical and biological characterisation of Snus, and part of our current research programme is investigating standardised methods for collecting extracts of Snus, both before and after use, that realistically and reliably inform about the chemical and biological characteristics of the constituents to which Snus users would be exposed.
Chris Proctor, Head of Science and Regulation
Where we go next? Well the world health organisation has an advisory committee called the study group on tobacco product regulation and its given recommendations on a series research that might be done on smokeless including pharmacokinetics studies including clinical trials and we're looking at that list seriously to see what the next steps in our research should be.