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Spread of Bacterial Diseases
Today in class we were introduced to bacteria to start off our immunology unit. Bacteria are spread in many ways. Scientists now have discovered that smoking a cigarette can spread bacteria - in addition to other harmful (and many times deadly) effects that lead to diseases such as emphysema and lung cancer.
Read Janet Raloff's article, Cigarettes might be infectious: And, presumably, people wouldn't need to light up to risk getting sick.
How is the bacteria spread? What conditions allow the bacteria to survive in the cigarette? Use your information from the bacteria notes to help you respond.
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Tobacco seems to hold hundreds of germs, but they have hidden under the white paper wraping of a cigarette. Amy Sapkota investigates just how dangerous these germs can be. She and her team found over 800 species of bacteria in four major brands of cigarettes. These include: Malbaro Red, Camel, Kool Filter Kings, and Lucky Strike Original Red. The germs they found were: Campylobacter, Corynebacterium, E. coli, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. Most of these germs can cause either pneumonia or food poisoning. Sapkota alos suggests that the bacteria can nestle inside the lungs and wait to attack the host. Sapkota plans to further her studies and find specific answers for her many questions.
ReplyDeleteThousands of tiny bacteriums live in tobacco. They live in the leafy parts of the cigarette and are transferred when smoked. Besides smoking cigarettes, these bacteria can also be spread just by putting a cigarette into your mouth, or even holding one. Bacteria have intertwined themselves into the DNA of the tobacco. From there, the bacteria reproduce using binary fission, until there are many many colonies. When smoked, it is possible that these colonies travel from the end of the cigarette into the mouth of the smoker.
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