The effects of nicotine on the body vary from short to long-lasting.  We are familiar with many of these – lung damage, high cholesterol, etc.  But the question is, how long is nicotine actually in your body for?  What is the detection period for a nicotine test (using urine)?

When your body takes in nicotine, it starts to break it down.  HowStuffWorks.com walks us through the process.

The liver breaks down nicotine into cotinine, the amount of which is proportionate to the amount of nicotine in your body (even nicotine that entered through second hand smoke).  In the lungs, nicotine is also broken down into cotinine, as well as nicotine oxide.

Cotinine is what tobacco tests really look for.  It takes about two to five hours for it to begin showing up in the urine, assuming for example that this is your first cigarette ever.  If you smoke daily, it will already be in your body from repeated previous uses.  How fast cotinine leaves your body is dependent upon metabolism, which can vary greatly between people (for example, some people are not able to break down nicotine in the body as easily as others; these people actually tend to smoke less, because maintaining a steady level of nicotine in the body requires fewer cigarettes).  In general though, a tobacco test can detect use for about 2-4 days after the cessation of smoking.

So if you want to see if someone has been smoking, or if your body contains cotinine, a tobacco test is your best option.  That way you don’t have to wonder about metabolism issues and the like – you can just find out, cheaply and at home.  Cotinine is also standard not just for home tests but for testing in general, since it is so suggestive of tobacco consumption and lasts longer in the body than nicotine.

Hopefully this answers some questions about how long nicotine stays in the body!  If you are interested in a tobacco test you can purchase one from us for $2.79 each.

Meth is one of the most notorious drugs – frequently in the news, it destroys individual lives and communities due to its addictive properties.  Meth has made the cover of major magazines like Time and Newsweek more than once.  It is important for someone wanting to drug test for it to know exactly how long meth stays in the system.

This is a largely misunderstood area, and a tricky question, because drugs can be detected in different parts of the body for different lengths of time.  As our Drug Test Detection Times chart shows, the time meth is in your system varies.  It varies, first of all, because our bodies vary – weight, metabolism, and overall health are just a few of the many factors that influence how long it takes the body to process drugs.  But drugs pass out of commonly tested body fluids at different rates too.

So, for example, 72 hours (3 days) is near the end of the time frame in which meth can be detected in saliva.  It can be found as soon as 5-10 minutes after being used though.

Meth can generally be detected in urine for 3-5 days after use.  2-5 hours after use the urine drug test detection period begins.  A urine Meth Test is extremely accurate (more than 99%) and FDA Approved as well.

Meth stays in your hair, however, for 90 days and longer (90 days is just the industry standard for a consumer hair drug test – labs can actually go back longer than that).  It takes about a week after use for the hair with meth traces in it to grow out of the scalp, but after that, a pair of scissors can clip the hair for a hair drug test and the meth will be found.

For all of these tests, you do not have to be a chronic user to have your use detected.  The body, and drug tests, are very sensitive and pick up even one-time use.

Meth can stay in your system for a long time.  This is just another reason to make sure that a drug as dangerous and harmful as meth stays out of your system.

You can check out our urine Meth Test here.

When stars fail drug tests, they attract a lot of attention and in most cases, their reputation seems to go down. The same is true of the average person too – nobody looks forward to failing a drug test.

Well, with the rise of prescription drug use and abuse, more and more people are facing a drug test failure.  Someone taking prescription Adderall can take a standard urine test and find out they’re positive!

When taking Adderall, you will come up positive for amphetamines in a test.  Informally known as speed, it was a popular drug especially in the 60s and 70s.  Testing for amphetamines in a urine drug screen is extremely common, and even considered standard.  Saliva and hair drug tests will also pick up amphetamines.

Adderall can be detected in your urine for about 2-4 days after use, perhaps longer depending on how much you take.  The Adderall Drug Test we carry has a standard cutoff level of 1,000 ng/mL, which is what is suggested by SAMHSA (the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration).  As early as 5-10 minutes after use, Adderall will show up positive on a saliva drug test – it stays in your saliva for up to 72 hours.  And just like other drugs, Adderall can be traced back up to 90 days after use in a hair drug test.

Ritalin, which is very similar to Adderall, also shows up as positive on the Adderall Drug Test.  That is because both Adderall and Ritalin are amphetamines.  The test is FDA Approved and 97% accurate.

So a drug test for Adderall is not something that should surprise you as you apply to jobs and so forth.  Be aware of this and be sure you have your prescription handy.

Does Xanax show up on drug tests?  The short answer is:  yes.  And here is why.

Xanax, also known as Alprazolam, is a benzodiazepine.  This is a major category of drugs that includes other “downers” such as Valium and Klonopin.  Benzodiazepines have been around since the 1950s, and they present some significant withdrawal risks.  So for practical reasons it is certainly no surprise that a Xanax Drug Test exists.

If you are on a benzodiazepine of any kind (Klonopin, Xanax, Valium, Ativan, etc.) the Xanax Drug Test will record a positive.  It can detect benzodiazepines in urine 3-7 days after use.

Aside from being picked up on a single strip urine drug test, Xanax and benzodiazepines in general can be tested for in multi drug urine tests.  Our 10 panel iCup test, as well as our 12 strip drug test, detect the presence of benzodiazepines in urine.  The 12 strip test is known as the “construction test” as a gesture to the extent of drug testing that is done on construction sites.

So again, the short answer is – yes, Xanax can be drug tested for.  Look for BZO, the abbreviation of benzodiazepine, or Xanax, or Valium when you are trying to purchase a Xanax Drug Test.  With prescription drug abuse on the rise in the United States, this type of drug test will no doubt become increasingly common.

Did you know that there is a difference between anonymous and confidential HIV testing?  There are actually a number of differences.  What we offer on our site is an anonymous home HIV test.  Read on to learn the differences between the two:

1.  Anonymous testing is not offered in every state. This is one of the reasons why the FDA Approved home HIV test is so important.  You simply cannot walk into a clinic and obtain an anonymous test in 11 states.  Your testing will still be accurate and confidential, but the anonymous testing option will not be available to you.  (Check out the Kaiser Family Foundation site for more information on this subject).

2.  In anonymous testing your name is never revealed.  In confidential testing, your name is reported to local government health officials. This is perhaps the greatest difference between the two types of testing.  If your test is found positive in confidential testing, your name is reported to local public health officials.  This is not necessarily a bad thing – such information is collected to provide better medical services and allows health officials to gauge the impact of HIV/AIDS on their population.  Confidential testing does NOT release your name by default to insurance companies or employers.  The federal government does not receive your name either, only the state.  Regulations vary state by state with confidential testing – if this is a concern of yours, please check with your state government for more information.

3.  Anonymous testing protects you from any and all risk of discrimination, or negative social impact from your test results. As mentioned above, confidential testing does not mean that your insurance company or employer will learn you were tested, or that you tested positive.  But as HIV/AIDS resource The Body points out, if you sign a release form to notify your personal physician, your status will be entered into your medical record forever, and may be available to employers and insurance companies.  In the case of anonymous testing, you run no risk of this whatsoever – you’re never a name, only a number.

4.  Anonymous HIV testing can be done in your home; confidential testing cannot. ALL of the FDA Approved home HIV tests on the market are anonymous.  You receive your results over the phone by supplying a numeric code – no-one ever knows your name, and only you know your results.  Since at the moment there are only two FDA Approved home HIV tests (both of which we carry), we can guarantee that home testing is 100% anonymous.

5.  Anonymous testing is the most private type of HIV testing you can get. If privacy is your priority, confidential testing will probably fall short for you for the reasons above – your name is reported, and you will have to go to a clinic or a doctor of some sort.  An anonymous home HIV test comes to your door in discreet packaging, and identifies you with an anonymous 11 digit code.  The package that is shipped to the lab doesn’t even include your return address.

The most important thing is to get tested, whether your choose anonymous or confidential testing.  Lots of people are doing it – the CDC reports 16-22 million people get tested per year – but still, not enough people are.  Make sure you take time to learn your status, either through confidential or anonymous HIV testing.

Even though 75% of the cholesterol that is present in our body is produced by the liver and other cells in our body, the lifestyle that we lead also contributes to the amount of cholesterol (chol.) that we have. Needless to say, the remaining 25% of the cholesterol in the body is mainly due to the diet that is consumed. A home cholesterol test can tell you the level of total cholesterol that you have at any given point in time.

The prevalence of high cholesterol is as high as 37.13% in the United States. This means that more than 1 in every 3 Americans is taking some medication or being treated for high cholesterol. It is also estimated that more than a quarter of women have chol. levels that are so high that they pose a threat of heart disease. One of the ways in which more serious complications of high cholesterol can be avoided is by using home cholesterol tests so that a regular check can be kept on one’s levels.

However, it is often assumed that cholesterol testing is required only after the age of 40 or 45. Many people do not even get the recommended once in a five year period cholesterol blood test done. The National Cholesterol Education Program recommends that everyone who is 20 years or above of age should get cholesterol testing with lipoprotein profile done at least once every five years. And this is based on the fact that a prevalence of 11 percent high cholesterol has been estimated even among men who are between the age of 20 and 34 years.

The frequency at which cholesterol testing should be done needs to be higher if you have a history of high cholesterol in your family. These days some incidence of high cholesterol has been noticed among kids as young as 4 or 5 years of age too. The factors that lead to high cholesterol among kids are obesity, diet and hereditary factors.

While it is mandatory for those who have high cholesterol to get the cholesterol checks done regularly based on the recommendation of the doctor, those who are at a high risk should also get a test done once in a while. If you consider going to the laboratory and waiting for your turn to give a sample to be too much of a time consuming activity, you can stock up with a home test that allows you to test your total cholesterol in an easy manner.

Such tests are available online, require no doctor’s prescription, and can be used to test cholesterol levels in a matter of a few minutes. It is a great way to keep an eye on your levels and take remedial action if you are a borderline high cholesterol case. Adequate diet modification and a few lifestyle changes can result in better management of cholesterol levels.

Some of the measures that you can take as soon as you notice borderline results in your home cholesterol test include exercise, reduction in calories from saturated and trans fats and moderation in alcohol consumption. Consumption of fresh fruits, fiber and fish have also been known to help those who see high cholesterol levels in their cholesterol blood test in lowering the levels.

Check out our home cholesterol test page to learn about the two different types of test we carry – the full lipid panel and the total cholesterol measuring test.

Learn more about cholesterol by visiting the National Cholesterol Education Program.

There are various kinds of tests that you can do these days to ascertain whether someone has been on drugs or not. While some drug tests use a saliva sample, or a blood sample to test for drug addiction, there are others that use a urine sample for drug abuse testing.

While gathering a sample for drug testing may seem invasive or perhaps tedious, a drug test is a necessary thing to do when you are recruiting people for a specific industry or trying to check if someone has been on drugs before coming to work. It’s also an important tool when you’re helping someone who struggles with drug addiction.

A urine or saliva-based home drug test may also work for a one time check for teens involved in drug addiction, but the one we would most recommend for these purposes is the hair drug test.

A hair drug test (also known as the hair follicle drug test) is something that can help you fight drug addiction by ensuring that you understand the history of the last 90 days with one snip of a hair. In fact, the great thing about a hair drug test is that you can check for more than 6 drugs at the same time. These include marijuana, cocaine, opiates, methamphetamines, ecstasy, PCP and amphetamines.

The blood in the body is known to nourish hair as it grows. If there are drugs in the blood, they will inevitably get into the hair follicles and move outwards as the hair grows. The hair drug test is not a great test to check on whether someone has consumed drugs in the last couple of days. This is mainly because the drug takes some time in getting into the hair and therefore it requires about a week for the results to show.

For accurate results, the hair sample required for the hair drug test should include at least 100 to 150 strands of hair. A sample of hair that is half inch long can give you a hair drug test analysis for about 30 days of drug history. Similarly an inch and a half of hair can tell you the history of drug abuse for 90 days.

The fact that it can tell you a history of drug abuse makes it a great tool for those who have already undergone rehab and are looking at avoiding a relapse. The collection of the hair sample is one of the easiest samples to take. In addition to that, the number of days that can be tested for is also a critical factor that makes it most suited for testing for rehab patients.

A home hair drug test can also be used if you want to make sure that your teens are not lying about whether they had a drug for the first time or not when they are caught. You only need to collect a snip of hair sample (you can choose to cut from different places on the scalp) and place it in a collection foil to send to the laboratory. Then the lab can tell you not only if your teen was using drugs in the past 3 months, but how frequently – if the teen is a daily user, or if the teen uses drugs recreationally. You’ll be able to use this information to create the most helpful and constructive response possible when dealing with your teen’s drug use.

Check out our Hair Drug Test section for more information.  Please note that the PDT-90 test and the Express Hair Follicle 7 Drug, Standard Hair Follicle 7 Drug, and Hair Drug Test for Business do have a few minor differences:  the number of drugs tested for (6 or 7) and whether detailed frequency of use information is available with your results (in the case of the PDT-90, no; in the case of the other 3 tests, yes).

- Anne Hamilton

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 50 percent of adults in the United States are regular drinkers (defined as at least 12 drinks in the last year). It is also estimated that among the 15.1 million alcohol dependent individuals in America, a third are women.

While limited amounts of alcohol consumption does not harm anyone, one needs to be wise enough to know how much is enough. There is also a difference between alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. While the former refers to drinking alcohol and then indulging in socially unacceptable behavior, something that can cause physical harm to others, the latter involves a physical dependence and craving for alcohol.

Uncontrolled alcohol consumption can affect the individual as well as the society that he or she lives in. There are also certain larger societal issues that drinking causes.

Individual Negative Effects of Alcohol Abuse

In the short term alcohol consumption makes a person cheerful. Over time it can cause dehydration, lack of motor coordination, blurred vision and a lowering of inhibitions. Long term health concerns include liver health.

An initial sign that someone is beginning to develop an alcohol dependency is that they seek out alcohol drinking occasions. They look at drinking as an escape from problems. Loss of will power and inadequate attempts to seek help are common.

Loss of self control becomes a pattern among those who abuse alcohol. Friendships start to last only if the companion is an alcohol partner.

Societal Concerns of Excessive Alcohol Consumption

The social effects of alcohol are far reaching. Some of these are:

- It is estimated that more than a hundred thousand people face death due to alcohol.

- There is a considerable loss in productivity that the workforce faces at large. Estimates go up to $100 billion per year. Work accidents, absenteeism, low performance while on the job are specific ways in which the overall productivity is reduced.

- About 40 percent of industrial fatalities and 47 percent of injuries at the workplace are caused due to drinking in some way or another.

- Alcohol abuse is involved in 50 percent of driving fatalities and someone is killed in an alcohol related accident every 30 minutes in the United States.

- Lactating, breast feeding or pregnant women who drink actually feed alcohol to their babies who are unable to burn the alcohol in the way an adult liver can. Genetic disorders and other defects are more probable among babies born of drinking mothers. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders are common due to alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

- 3/4ths of all domestic abuse incidents involve the consumption of alcohol by the abuser.

Knowing when you are moving from a casual drinker to one that is actively looking for alcohol almost all the time is essential. If you feel that you child or spouse is drinking more than what is considered okay, use the alcohol test to check out the number of times he or she is drinking. In the long run it may be one of the best things you can do for a person.

- Anne Hamilton

We all know that smoking is hazardous to health and yet we are also aware of the increasing number of teens who smoke cigarettes in our country. It is estimated that more than 3000 kids under the age of 18 start smoking every day. About a third of this number actually ends up becoming addicted smokers for life. Today the estimated number of adolescent smokers in the United States is more than 4.5 million.

Health Risks of Teen Smoking

While smoking is extremely unhealthy for everyone, the health risk associated with teens is higher. It is known that teens who smoke fall sick more often than teens that do not. Their lungs do not develop completely and they tend to have smaller lungs.

People who start smoking early in life are more prone to have a long term addiction and are also likely to get into alcohol or drug addiction. Those who smoke a pack a day have lives that are shorter by about 7 years on an average from other comparable teens.

The health risks of smoking are too many. Here are some of them:

- The sense of smell and taste of smokers is affected over time. This means that they cannot enjoy good tastes and smells over time.

- Smokers have low immunity and are more susceptible to various ailments including heart diseases and respiratory diseases. It is a common cause of throat and mouth cancer.

- Teen girls who smoke have a tough time becoming pregnant and they may also have painful periods. Teen boys who smoke are likely to have a lower sperm count.

- With narrowing of veins in hands and legs, circulation becomes an issue, something that in rare cases can even lead to gangrene and amputation.

- Cigarettes contain tar, hydrogen cyanide, benzene, acetone, formaldehyde, ammonia, carbon monoxide and nicotine, each one of which is like poison for the body.

- Other issues caused by smoking include bad hair, bad skin, bad breath, reduced lung power and slower healing to mention just a few.

Helping Kids Stay Away From Smoking

No one can help your kids from staying away from this habit better than you can. Here are some tips that you can use to ensure that your kids do not ever light up that first cigarette that leads to many more.

- Many teens start to smoke because they think it is cool and hip to do so. They also think that it will make them look older. It is important that you help your teen develop a positive attitude towards what s/he is so that the pressure of trying to fit in is not too high to lead to habits like smoking.

- Ensure that you have a chat with your child about smoking before s/he has a chance to get exposed to it. This means that it is never too soon for such a chat due to the high level of exposure that we have these days in media, schools and colleges about smoking, drugs and alcohol.

- Understand that sometimes it may be extremely difficult for your teen to say no. You need to discuss the various ways in which they can say no. Stock a tobacco test at home and ask them to cite that to their peers to avoid a puff.

- Discuss the portrayal of smoking in the movies and make sure to explain that it is not cool to hang a cigarette between the lips.

Using a tobacco test to ascertain whether your teen has been smoking on a regular basis can really have your teen thinking about whether s/he can afford to light that cigarette and take the risk. It is definitely better than allowing them to get addicted to the habit.

We’re number #1…according to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) (via Talk Radio News Service) the US is still the “largest market for illegal drugs in the world” with marijuana and drugs like OxyContin and Vicodin the most widely used.

Are you shocked that the United States takes this title?  Consider that an estimated 20%  of people in the US have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons.  Considering the US population that’s not a small number of people.

It seems that Americans have decided to make their own decisions about whether or not they will medicate.  Although OxyContin can be extremely dangerous and comparable to heroin or crack cocaine when injected or smoked, people seem to find popping pills a routine experience.  Which is what makes OxyContin so addictive and so dangerous.

Want to learn more?  Check out this excellent documentary from Vanguard journalist Mariana van Zeller, the OxyContin Express:

And of course, you don’t have to wonder whether someone you know and love is abusing prescription drugs. Check out our Vicodin Test / OxyContin Test for more information and to be sure the person you love is clean.