Is Side-Stream Smoke a Stressor?

Side-stream smoke in working environments has been regarded as a stressfulagent. In this paper, we have studied whether nicotine, pyridine, benzopyreneand solanesol, four substances contained in environmental tobacco smoke, were able to activate hormone mechanisms related to stress. We accomplishedthis task using in vivo and in vitro models. Nicotine was able to stimulatepituitary adrenocorticotropin and corticosterone secretion in vivo in the rat,whereas pyridine, benzopyrene and solanesol failed to do so. Nicotine stimulatedcorticotropin releasing hormone secretion from explanted rat hypothalamiin vitro, in a concentration-dependent manner. On the other hand, pyridine,benzopyrene and solanesol did not stimulate corticotropin releasing hormonesecretion. Nicotine, pyridine, benzopyrene and solanesol were not ableto stimulate adrenocorticotropin secretion from dispersed rat pituicytes.Results indicate that, with the exception of nicotine, substances contained inside-stream smoke examined in our work are not able to act as stressful agentsand produce activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in the rat.