Effect of tobacco dust on Haematological Parameters in rural women beedi rollers living in northern region of Telangana State

Abstract

Beedi is a south Indian slim and popular cheapest handmade cigarette made up of 0.2-0.3 g unfiltered tobacco flakes but it carries greater health risks to humans as it contains about 4000 active chemical compounds of which more than 50 are carcinogenic and mutagenic including nicotine, TSNA, carbon monoxide and other volatile components. Beedi rollers thus handle tobacco flakes and inhale tobacco dust as well as volatile components of tobacco in their work environment that have a more adverse effect on their health. 253 women beedi rollers in the age group of 18-50 yrs exposed to tobacco dust and for comparison equal number of women in the same age group belonging to socio economic status and not exposed occupationally to any chemical compound (control group) were enrolled for the study. Peripheral blood samples were collected from both the groups and complete blood picture (CBP) was studied using fully automatic haematological analyser. The results have shown significantly higher levels of white blood cell (p<0.001), mean corpuscular volume (P < 0.0001) and haematocrit (P = 0.0071) and significantly decreased levels of haemoglobin (P < 0.0001), RBC count (P < 0.0001) and RDW CV (P = 0.0023) in beedi rollers compared to controls.In conclusion, our data suggest that occupational exposure to tobacco dust result in severe adverse effects on haematological parameters in beedi rollers.