Nicotine poisoning common in tobacco workers

Nicotine poisoning is common among tobacco farm workers, but there may be simple ways to reduce the risk, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among 304 North Carolina tobacco workers, more than 18 percent had suffered nausea, dizziness, headache and other symptoms of nicotine poisoning in the past four months.

At particular risk were workers with skin problems like rash, itching or cuts - likely because they promoted nicotine absorption through the skin.

On the other hand, workers who wore rain gear to protect their skin from contact with tobacco plants had a lower risk of nicotine poisoning.

The findings suggest that keeping the skin dry and out of contact with tobacco plants - particularly areas of damaged skin - can help prevent nicotine poisoning, the researchers report in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

Nicotine is both water- and fat-soluble. The dew on tobacco plants contains nicotine, and when that gets on the skin - either directly or through wet clothes - nicotine is absorbed into the body, explained Dr. Thomas A. Arcury of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Rain suits help keep this from happening, he told Reuters Health.

Based on the current findings, workers should also be advised to take extra care in protecting areas of damaged skin, Arcury and his colleagues recommend.

However, getting such health messages out can be challenging, according to Arcury. In the U.S., most tobacco farm workers are Latino migrant workers, with the majority being from Mexico, and many have limited access to health care.

"Workers have limited resources and cannot afford take time off work, either to avoid exposure...or to get health care," Arcury noted.

In a previous study, he and his colleagues also found that tobacco growers, while aware of workers' symptoms, often minimized the seriousness of them, or misunderstood the cause altogether - blaming heat or the physical demands of the job, for instance, rather than nicotine exposure.

SOURCE: American Journal of Industrial Medicine, March 2008.