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! I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I # 108 AUTHOR: WEHNER, ALFRED P., RICHARD Jo OLSON, AND ROBERT H. BUSCH DATE= 1976 TITLE: INCREASED LIFE SPAN AND DECREASED WEIGHT IN HAMSTERS EXPOSED TO CIGARETTE SMOKE CITATION: ARCHIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH 31:146-152 (1976) STUDY DESIGN: Five groups of fifty-one 2-month old male Syrian golden hamsters received three 10-minute exposures to cigarette smoke (1R1) per day, 5 days/week for the duration of their lives. Three of the groups were also chronically exposed to aerosols of chrysotile asbestos, cobalt oxide, and nickel oxides, respectively. The fourth group received twelve weekly injections of .25 mg of diethylnitrosamine. RNDINGS/RESULTS: A significant (P <0.01) depression of mean body weight consistently occurred in all groups exposed to cigarette smoke. This weight-depressing effect became apparent during the first weeks of smoke exposure and remained throughout the life spans of the groups. With the exception of the two asbestos-exposed groups, the groups exposed to cigarette smoke lived significantly (P <0.01) longer than their sham exposed cohorts. The hamsters exposed to asbestos plus smoke also outlived their sham- exposed cohorts, however the difference was not significant, Comparison of the survival of the control group (sham smoke plus sham dust) with that of the sham-smoke exposed groups treated with CoO, NiO, asbestos, and DEN, respectively, shows that these treatments did not appreciably affect the survival of the treated groups. A similar comparison shows that, with the exception of the group exposed to asbestos plus smoke, all smoke-exposed groups survived significantly longer than the control group. Amyloidosis is a common and often fatal disease in hamsters. There was no appreciable difference in the overall incidence of amyloidosis between the smoke-exposed and the sham- smoke exposed groups. However, there was consistently a much lower incidence of amyloidosis in the smoke-exposed groups at various intervals during the experiments. CONCLUSIONS: The delayed onset of amyloidosis and lower body weight in the smoke-exposed hamsters may have been responsible for the increased life span. The authors hypothesized that cigarette smoke affected the immune system of the animals, resulting in retardation of amyloidosis. I