NEW DELHI: A new study conducted by IIT Gandhinagar (IITGN) reveals that herbal cigarettes, often marketed as natural products, are more harmful than regular cigarettes. These herbal cigarettes produce emissions that can be comparably or even more damaging than tobacco smoke.
On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day, the research was published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. The study compared emissions from two of India's best-selling tobacco brands with four popular herbal varieties that include a mix of basil, clove, cinnamon, mint, green tea, water lily, and chamomile.
Notably, two of the herbal brands used tendu (ebony) leaves as wrappers, similar to those used in bidis, India's most widely consumed smoking product.
The paper, titled “The Lure of 'Healthier Smoke': Comparative Physical, Chemical, and Oxidative Potential Characterization of Emissions from Herbal and Tobacco Cigarettes,” provides a comprehensive comparison of the physical, chemical, and oxidative properties of mainstream (first-hand) smoke from commercially available herbal and tobacco cigarettes in the Indian market. The study was conducted in collaboration with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the United States.
A key finding was that fine particles smaller than 500 nanometres were emitted at approximately 20 per cent higher concentrations in herbal smoke compared to tobacco smoke. These tiny particles are increasingly linked to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
Moreover, researchers found that herbal cigarettes had a higher oxidative potential (OP), which refers to reactive oxygen species, aggressive molecules that promote inflammation, lung tissue remodelling, and vascular changes that lead to heart disease.
“Our findings challenge the widely held belief that tobacco-free means risk-free,” said Prof. Sameer Patel, Assistant Professor at IITGN. “Emissions from herbal cigarettes are comparable to or exceed those from tobacco cigarettes on nearly every metric we measured. Leaf-wrapped herbal variants turned out to be the most hazardous among all the samples tested,” he added.
The study also exposes a regulatory gap concerning herbal cigarettes. India's Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COTPA), regulates tobacco products through warning labels, advertising restrictions, and public smoking rules, but products marketed as tobacco-free often fall outside these regulations. Similar regulatory gaps are present in several other countries.
On World No Tobacco Day, observed by the World Health Organization and other stakeholders, it is crucial to raise awareness that herbal cigarettes are not safer than tobacco. Each year on May 31, the WHO collaborates with governments, health organisations, civil society, and youth to combat the tobacco epidemic and secure a tobacco- and nicotine-free future for the next generation.