Chronic cigarette smoking causes inflammation and some reports indicate that generally healthy smokers (SMK) exhibit changes in the inflammatory cytokines versus non-smokers. However, it remains to be established whether consumers of non-combustible tobacco, such as moist snuff consumers (MSC) and dual users of cigarettes and moist snuff (DU-SKMS), also experience altered inflammation. Recently in a biomarker discovery study (Study 1), we observed that in contrast to SMK, the MSC exhibited cytokine profiles similar to non-tobacco consumers (NTC). Here, we present the levels of selected inflammatory cytokines from several cohorts of natural adopters of various tobacco products participating in a different study (Study 2).

Cytokine profiles of Human InflammationMAP^®v1.0 panel (Myriad RBM) were generated from plasma and saliva samples collected in the Study 2 from cohorts of generally healthy, adult SMK, MSC, DU-SKMS and NTC who fasted overnight from food and tobacco. While several analytes from both plasma and saliva were found to be significantly different among the cohorts (p<0.05), 11 analytes from plasma were found to be highly significantly different (p<0.02). The SMK cohort had the highest mean values of all 11 analytes compared to the other cohorts, followed by the DU-SKMS which had cytokine profiles similar to SMK, reflecting the level of smoking in DU-SKMS. MSC and NTC cohorts had lower mean values. Cytokine profiles were similar between MSC and NTC, consistent with the previous findings from the biomarker discovery study. Although the demographics of the two studies were notably different, six analytes, fibrinogen, ICAM-1, VEGF, MMP-9, ferritin and complement component 3, emerged as potential biomarkers that distinguish tobacco consumers. These data suggest that smoking is the likely agent driving inflammation. Overall, the inflammatory cytokine levels suggest that inflammation is increased among combustible tobacco consumers relative to MSC and NTC, with few differences detected between MSC and NTC.