We have often heard that smoking cigarettes causes harm. But what does it do to Human body? Smoking during pregnancy causes damages to foetal organs. According to the study, it causes harm to the liver which causes damage to the entire body.The findings which are led by the researchers of University of Edinburg, states that the cocktail of 7000 hazardous chemical which is present in a cigarette is very dangerous for prenatal developing liver cells. The liver helps in regulating metabolism by clearing out the toxins present in our body.The research report says that these chemical damages the male and female foetusdifferently. The male tissue suffers from liver scarring whereas female tissue shows more damage to cell metabolism.
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According to the journal Archives of Toxicology, the team analysed the maternal smoking on liver tissue by using embryonic stem cells.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," said David Hay from the University of Edinburgh.
The study was done by scientists who used pluripotent stem cells- non specialised stem cells that have distinctive ability to modify into any other cell type- to build foetal liver tissue. Liver cells that are exposed to harmful chemicals that are found in cigarettes causes certain harmful substances to circulate in the foetuses of the mother smoking. The result of the experiment revealed that the cocktail of chemicals that are similar to that found in Cigarettes, harms foetal liver more than individual components.