How Long Does Nicotine Stay In Your System?

Stop smoking hypnosisThe 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.

Teen Smoking

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.

Tobacco Tests Deal With The Chronic Disease That Is Smoking

The Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (JAAPA) has put out an article on tobacco dependency, which they write is now considered a “chronic disease.”  This is a great advance in that it tells the world to get serious about quitting smoking – it is a disease and addiction like any other, no matter how legal it may be.  Their article is a guide to intervening in tobacco addiction, especially interesting to the average person because it is from a clinician’s perspective.  And believe me, they are very tough about quitting!

Their keys to quitting include keeping tabs on every tobacco user that enters the office and adding “tobacco use” to the vital signs of a healthcare chart.  Tobacco use is to be incorporated into most health advice, and assessments are to be made at every visit – is so and so willing to quit?  It is also really important that quitting be seen as a group effort, as opposed to an individual struggle.  To quote from the article:

Assist Aid the patient’s efforts to quit by providing counseling and pharmacotherapy. Clinicians should guide the patient’s preparations for quitting, such as have the patient set a quit date; have the patient tell family, friends, and coworkers about the quit attempt and request support; tell the patient to anticipate challenges, including nicotine withdrawal symptoms; and have the patient remove tobacco products from the environment. The use of effective medications should be recommended to those patients  who may need them. Appropriate medications can reduce withdrawal symptoms and increase chances of quitting success.

We believe that among the many uses of our tobacco test, creating an evaluative environment is one of them.  The test can be used or not used by the person trying to quit, or family and friends around them – but its presence in the home is a way of keeping someone honest.  As the article states, smoking is a chronic disease, and there are many cases in which one might want to give it their all to get someone they know to quit smoking.

The article has all sorts of great considerations that can help you shape a serious effort to be a tobacco quitter or be someone who helps someone who is quitting.  With help, focus, concentration, and nicotine tests, people can quit smoking.  It’s one area in which you definitely, definitely want to be a quitter!

Are You Keeping Your Resolution? How to Quit Smoking

Stop smoking hypnosisEveryone knows that smoking is extremely harmful for one’s health and the government has done a lot to create awareness of the various problems that smoking can cause. The issue is not with creating awareness about the negative effects of smoking but actually quitting. The New Year is an excellent time to see how this is true because there are thousands of smokers who resolve to quit smoking only to find that they are itching to hold a cigarette in their hands after a few hours of the resolution. A nicotine test, among other methods, is a great way to give up the habit for good.

If you try and ask advice of smokers who have successfully quit smoking for good, you shall find that there are as many suggestions as smokers. While you can review each one of these methods, you will have to check out the one that works best for you. Make sure that you continuously use tobacco testing at home so that you can be aware of the presence of nicotine in your body. Awareness of the pervasiveness of nicotine in your body with these nicotine tests may actually shake you out of your inertia.

Such testing can be done at home very easily. All that you need is a small sample of urine. The tobacco test checks out the level of cotinine in the urine. This is a by-product of nicotine that is processed in your body and excreted through the urine. This is why the nicotine test is also called the cotinine test at times.

Some of the methods that you can adopt to quit smoking have been listed below. These can be used as standalone options or in combination to ensure that you are able to successfully quit the habit. While you work with these methods, use the tobacco test as well.

– Just quit – Some people believe that a slow reduction in the number of cigarettes is not an option but that a cold turkey method should be adopted.

– Reduction over time – This is a method that can help if you have specific times when you reach out for a cigarette and want to slowly eliminate those rituals as days pass. Use a nicotine test when you finally have not smoked for a few days. This can be a great motivator because you can see how your body is actually getting cleansed – you will see after 2 to 4 days that you actually test negative for nicotine!

– Quit with a friend – This is another method that works because it creates a sense of competition and/or cooperation.

There are other methods like nicotine patches, nicotine chewing gums, nicotine lozenges and nicotine inhalers that you can use. Whichever choice you make, everyone wishes you the best of luck in quitting smoking!  As a company that specializes in the home drug test, we know of a lot of drugs out there, and nicotine certainly is hard to quit!  That’s why we have a test designed along those lines to help you with that legal but addictive substance.

Anne Hamilton

Nicotine Test – Top 5 Reasons to Buy

Have you ever thought of purchasing a tobacco test? You know, an easy to use urine drug test that allows you to figure out if cotinine is still in your system? Here are the top 5 reasons why this might be a good idea for you:

1. You will learn what cotinine is. Cotinine is a metabolite of nicotine, and when you purchase a nicotine test, that is what you are testing for in urine. Cotinine can still be detected in urine up to 2 to 4 days after the last tobacco use. And indeed, as wikipedia states, it is an anagram of nicotine. So that is one fun fact about the nicotine test already!

2. It is really, really easy to use. Just like any other urine-based home drug test, the nicotine test uses a very simple procedure. Just collect a urine sample and use the included dropper to put a few drops of urine on the cassette (see the full nicotine test instructions for details). You will have your results in all of five minutes!

3. Nicotine tests are an increasingly popular form of screening among insurance companies and employers. The days of 50s chain-smoking live on only in Mad Men. Insurance companies are keen to know who smokes and thus has higher risk factors for a number of conditions, and employers who provide health insurance want to know as well. A recent story about someone who lost their job because of a nicotine test highlights the issue, as does this blog article on smoking.

4. It is extremely accurate. Nicotine tests are very, very good at detecting tobacco use of all kinds – cigar smoke, cigarette smoke, chewing tobacco. They are FDA approved and 99% accurate. They can also detect very very small amounts of cotinine in urine – the tests we sell meet the standard cutoff level of 200 ng/ml.

5. It will help you quit. When you quit a habit like smoking, it is good to set goals and have a plan. You may want someone else to monitor your progress, or you may want to use them to monitor someone else’s progress. Will you be gratified when you take one of these tests and see that your test comes back negative for cotinine – that your body is clean? We think so.

There are many reasons to be interested in this particular home drug test, but these are your top 5 for today!

Nicotine Test As Part of the Great American Smokeout!

You may know as a reader of this blog that the Great American Smokeout is tomorrow. It’s an opportunity to give up smoking or plan to do so, and if you’re planning, to figure out how to do it – get rid of ashtrays, attend a class, prevent relapse by keeping a nicotine test or two around.

Some fast facts about from the American Cancer Society about smoking. Did you know…:

    This is the 34th Great American Smokeout?

    That smokers who quit at age 35 gain an average of eight years of life expectancy?

    That smokers who quit at 65 gain three years?

So it is never too late to quit smoking, nor is it an impossible task.

We welcome you to join us on twitter (we are HomeHealthTweet) with any of your comments about the Great American Smokeout, or if you have any questions about our nicotine test. It works like any home drug test we carry (check them out by clicking on the link) that requires a urine sample, and is just as easy to do and accurate. Quitting smoking is, as the American Cancer Society says, about commitment – and it is good to have as many tools by your side to make sure you stay the course once you choose to quit. There may be events going on in your area, or support groups springing up to help you make the choice to quit.

A tobacco test could be your best friend during the Great American Smokeout tomorrow and days hence! We wish everyone luck tomorrow with quitting and look forward to your comments and questions. If you wish to add a home nicotine test to your efforts, just click on the link and checkout as an anonymous guest or register with us. You can change the quantity from 5 to 10 pack, and choose how many of the chosen pack you would like at the shopping cart screen. We hope you find our nicotine test an effective way to keep committed to quitting – for good!