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I want to add some additional commentary on this post, because it relates to an experiment I did during one of my college science courses. I will summarize for
by tawbah 7y ago
I want to add some additional commentary on this post, because it relates to an experiment I did during one of my college science courses.
I will summarize for convenience. Essentially, what we did for the experiment was to observe the effect of tobacco "juice" (i.e. the loose trimmings from a Marlboro Red cigarette which were soaked in water) on a cell culture where the cells were taken from the inside of our mouths(cheeks) via cotton swabs.
The experiment was to observe the effects of this tobacco juice on the cells over time.
Within 2 weeks of exposure, the cells mutated and were "cancerous" and appeared disfigured and damaged.
This was terrifying to see up close.
- leoh 7y agoDid you have a control with plant juice from other arbitrary plant leaves?
- tawbah 7y agoOur professor was the one leading the experiment, so she may have had one, but I can't be certain.
- bcrosby95 7y agoReminds me a bit of the "put a tooth in coke for a month" experiments. I'm not sure these sorts of things mean all that much.
- m463 7y agoA friend saw me drinking coke and said he never drank soft drinks after the "tooth dissolves in coke" thing he did in school. So he was probably healthier even though it was based on scare tactics.
- Noumenon72 7y agoYup. I quit drinking soda based on a swallowing study I did where I had a pH meter in my esophagus. It freaked me out that I was swallowing something more acidic than my stomach so I stopped drinking it. That was back when fat was still considered worse for you than sugar. Thank goodness for slightly unsound science.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago>"That was back when fat was still considered worse for you than sugar." Just a small addition/correction: Back when all fat was considered worse for you. We've since started distinguishing between trans fats, and saturated/unsaturated fats, and various subtypes of those. Trans fats and saturated fats are still bad, despite what some types would have you believe. As is sugar.
- quotemstr 7y agoThe dose makes the poison. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw the same effects with prolonged ultra-high doses caffeine or some other innocuous substance.
- mschuster91 7y agoThe interesting question: is this caused by the tobacco, or is this caused by the fact that the mucous membrane in the mouth normally fully regenerates every 8 days? The cells shouldn't be alive after two weeks.