Passive Smoking Also Affects Plants -- New Study

A new study revealed that adding to the fact that passive smoking is extremely dangerous for people, it also affects plants greatly. The study found that some plants take nicotine from the air and if the soil is contaminated, then it absorbs it from the roots as well. The study was conducted by Dirk Selmar and his colleagues at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany.

The findings explain the reason behind the observance of high nicotine concentration found in medicinal plants and herbal teas, including spices. Nicotine was used as an insecticide in the past and was banned by the European Union. However, it was found that despite the ban and the exclusion of it in insecticides, plants still showed high concentration of nicotine. Nicotine is highly toxic, the press release states which raises alarm as the food crops and plant derived products contain high amounts of nicotine. The team initially thought that the findings would reveal illegal use of nicotine containing insecticides but the study showed otherwise.

Peppermint plants were used for the study. At the beginning of the experiment, the nicotine content observed was very minimal. After a series of fumigation with cigarette smoke, the nicotine content drastically increased, stated Selmar. The study also found that soil contaminated with nicotine increases its content in the plants as the roots absorb the substance. This is the first study to show that peppermint plants absorb nicotine from contaminated soil, the press release reveals.

Contaminated soil increases the nicotine level of the plants and the resulting amount is found to be higher than that set by the European authorities because of the tobacco, the research states. "Our results suggest that the widespread occurrence of nicotine in medicinal, spice and food plants may, at least in part, be due to other nicotine sources apart from the illegal use of insecticides," says Selmar.

The study is of high importance to the food industry and also holds significance as it proves that substances, such as alkaloids, can be passed on from one plant to the other even after its death. This sheds light on the success of several practices that science could never justify crop rotation and the co-cultivation of certain vegetables, the release states.

The study is published in Springer's journal, Agronomy For Sustainable Development.

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