Snus gets another clean bill of health

Swedish researchers who two years ago reported that snus use was not associated with heart attacks have now concluded it is not associated with stroke, according to professor Brad Rodu writing on the R Street Institute website.

Rodu is a professor of medicine at the University of Louisville (UofL), USA. He holds an endowed chair in tobacco harm reduction research and is a member of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center at UofL.

The new study, published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, is the product of a collaboration of scientists from the Karolinska Institute; Sweden’s Umeå, Uppsala and Lund universities; and the University of Milano-Bicocca in Italy.

“It is well known that nicotine does not cause cancer, but its role in cardiovascular diseases has been difficult to determine,” said Rodu.

“Studying users of Swedish snus, who consume large quantities of smoke-free nicotine over decades, the Swedish researchers concluded that nicotine was unlikely to be a contributor to heart attacks or strokes.

“Smokeless tobacco and nicotine have been demonized for no valid scientific reasons. The Swedish findings are vitally important to all consumers of nicotine and tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.”

Unlike tobacco cigarettes, which are said to account for 700,000 preventable deaths each year in the EU, snus is banned in the EU outside of Sweden.

The R Street Institute piece is at http://www.rstreet.org/2014/04/01/no-stroke-risk-with-snus/.