Smokeless-tobacco users are exposed to even higher levels of deadly nitrosamines than smokers, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota Cancer Center.

Science Daily reported Aug. 10 that researcher Stephen Hecht, Ph.D., and colleagues compared 182 oral snuff users to 420 smokers and found that the smokeless-tobacco users were exposed to higher levels of the carcinogenic nitrosamine NNK, known to cause lung, pancreatic, nasal mucosa and liver cancer.

"Smokeless tobacco products have been proposed by some as safer alternatives to cigarettes, but they are not safe," said Hecht. "The only likely safe alternative to smoking is the long term use of nicotine replacement therapy as a means to reduce dependence. In fact, this study lends evidence to support the notion that the oral use of tobacco actually provides a more efficient means for delivering certain carcinogens into the body through the bloodstream, although cigarette smoke includes a host of carcinogenic products that aren't a major factor in smokeless tobacco."

The study was published in the August 2007 issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.