This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Smoking harms livers of unborn babies
University of Edinburgh scientists have discovered that the combination of chemicals in cigarettes is harmful to developing liver cells.
Smoking cigarettes, which contain around 7,000 chemicals, can damage foetal organs and may do lasting harm.
The new stem cell study, published in the journal Archives of Toxicology, analysed the effects of maternal smoking on liver tissue using embryonic stem cells, using pluripotent stem cells - cells which have the ability to transform into other cell types - to build foetal liver tissue.
It highlighted that a chemical cocktail, similar to that found in cigarettes, harmed foetal liver health more than individual components. It also found that the cigarette chemicals affect male and female foetuses differently, with male tissue showing liver scarring and female tissue showing more damage to cell metabolism.
Dr David Hay from the University of Edinburgh's centre for regenerative medicine, said: "Cigarette smoke is known to have damaging effects on the foetus, yet we lack appropriate tools to study this in a very detailed way. This new approach means that we now have sources of renewable tissue that will enable us to understand the cellular effect of cigarettes on the unborn foetus."
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