What most smokers don’t really know is what happens with nicotine once it has found its way into the body. Nicotine is being decomposed very quickly – A non smoker needs about 2 – 3 hours to decompose the nicotine of one cigarette, a smoker can do it in 30 – 60 minutes. Anyway nicotine can still be detected in the body for days after the last cigarette. In this article we will explain, what happens with the nicotine after you stubbed out your last cigarette.
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Nicotine is a substance that your body can not accumulate. It is the main reason for the addiction, as if it was possible to accumulate nicotine, on cigarette would provide the body with enough nicotine for days, or even weeks. But the body starts decomposing nicotine very quick after it is being inhaled. This is due to the high toxicity of nicotine which makes the body react as fast as possible. The chemical that the body uses to decompose nicotine is called cotinine. It is a degredation product that is able to degrade nicotine in a matter of 30 – 60 minutes in the body of a smoker. |
Due to the addiction a smoker’s body produces more than a non-smoker’s body. A non-smoker needs about 2 – 3 hours to degrade the nicotine of once cigarette, as the body is not prepared for the production of cotinine. Most smokers would now ask how it is possible to detect the consumption of nicotine even days after it has been completely removed from the body.
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What smokers don’t know is that the only purpose the body produces cotinine for is the degredation of nicotine. It is a natural defense mechanism of the body as a reaction to the contamination with a toxic chemical. This means, if you can detect an amount of cotinine in the body, that is high enough, you know that the person must have consumed nicotine containing products. As cotinine has a half life of 16 – 22 hours, it is possible to detect it even days after the last cigarette. Though cotinine can be found even in the body of a non-smoker, you can tell who consumed nicotine and who didn’t. Most people do only have cotinine in their body because of second-hand-smoke, but the amount they carry is too low. |
And let’s not forget about all the other chemicals contained in tobacco smoke. Many of them can not be degraded so fast, and detecting a certain combination of different chemicals in the body, can be a reliable indication for the consumption of nicotine. So if you ask yourself if nicotine can show up in a blood test, the simple answer is: No it usually can not – But there are substances that show up, and that clearly indicate the consumption of nicotine!
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