Inflammation, systemic damage and cell death was found by researchers when they analyzed smoker’s blood "metabolomics" profile. The research was conducted Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center as part of Georgetown University Medical Center.

They believe that the findings indicate that the chemicals produced by smoking increase toxins and carcinogens in the smokers and increase the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and other diseases. Their findings were reported at the Ninth AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Meeting.

"Our analysis uncovered hallmarks of liver, heart, and kidney toxicity in otherwise healthy patients," says the study's lead investigator, Ping-Ching Hsu, a doctoral student who works in the laboratory of oncology researcher. Peter Shields, MD, is the senior author of the study.

Shields said, “The findings could help in the development of new blood tests that will allow researchers to assess the harmfulness of one tobacco product compared to another. This could be useful to the federal Food and Drug Administration, the agency charged by Congress to begin controlling the contents of cigarettes.”

The research suggests a novel method to analyze and evaluate the after effects of cigarette smoking. "We have come up with an actual picture of what is happening in the body of smokers and the harm that is being produced," Hsu said.
In their initial research they evaluated blood of ten smokers both prior and post smoking of a cigarette. They then analyzed the effects after another cigarette was smoked a one hour later.

"One goal of our work is to identify new risk markers for lung cancer that can then enhance early detection of smoking-related disorders, and to do that we need to develop new biomarkers," Hsu said.