Smoking

Question

I am 17 years old and was diagnosed with CF already after birth. I have had a boyfriend for a year now who smokes, also in his room, though only with the window open and never when I am around.

When one enters the room, one does not smell smoke, but my lung function has decreased, and so I wanted to know if that could result from spending time in his room, even though I can really say that one actually cannot tell that someone is smoking in there.

Thank you for your help.

Answer

Hello,

with your question, you are addressing the issue of “passive smoking,” on which even apart from CF there is a lot of information available. Typically, though, “passive smoking” refers to the inhalation of so-called sidestream smoke: the smoke that a cigarette releases while it is smouldering along. The smoke that the smoker him-/herself inhales has a completely different consistency because during dragging, air and oxygen are sucked through the tobacco. Thus the combustion process happens under completely different temperature conditions, and therefore the decay products of the burned substances (a cigarette contains much more than just tobacco, after all) are different, too. Therefore, sitting next to a smoker or in a room filled with smoke – small rooms such as the inside of a car are particularly bad –, one is exposed to the sidestream smoke, which contains particularly toxic substances. This type of exposure is a true sanitary burden, since it is known by know that this kind of smoke – the process of passive smoking, that is – makes people sick.

A lot less is known about the harmfulness of vapors of condensed smoke – the typical smoke odor in a smoker’s car or room, or in their clothes – and therefore one cannot assume that there is a definitive risk related to it.

As you can see, all of this hardly fits your situation, and so you should look for other reasons for the deterioration of your lung function. To that end, you absolutely have to get in touch with your CF clinic because such deterioration should be counteracted as quickly and well as possible.

One comment I cannot deny myself, of course: regardless of the above, there are certainly enough reasons for your boyfriend to stop smoking because smoking sickens people… he is familiar with that from the imprints on the cigarette packets…

Kind regards

Prof. TOF Wagner

01.12.2008