Wijnmakers wacht straks nog een aardige bijverdienste. Ze kunnen de overgebleven druivenpitten straks kwijt aan de sigarettenindustrie. Want het zaad in die pitten helpt de geïnhaleerde rook minder schadelijk te maken voor tabaksverslaafden.Ook toegevoegd lycopene, dat in tomaten zit, maakt roken minder gevaarlijk.

We lazen het onderzoekbericht op de website van de Wine Club:

“Lycopene and grape seed extracts stuffed into a conventional cigarette filter can drastically lower the amount of harmful agents contained in the cigarette, claims a new study.

Though emphasizing that quitting is the best remedy to combat health problems for smokers, Researchers from the lab of Jack H. Freed, the Frank and Robert Laughlin Professor of Physical Chemistry said lycopene or carotenoid and grape seed extracts make cigarettes less toxic. "The implications of this technique can help reduce the hazardous effects of tobacco smoke," said Boris Dzikovski, research associate and paper co-author.

The Cornell scientists altered filters of normal cigarettes with a mixture of grape seed and lycopene treated with activated carbon in the middle. Their experiments focused on gas-phase free radicals, as opposed to other hazardous ingredients such as the solid particles, or tar, contained in cigarettes.

A laboratory machine "smoked" the altered cigarettes, along with conventional ones. The smoke was passed through a spin-trapping solution, and electron spin resonance spectroscopy (ESR) was used to record the spectra of trapped radicals in the smoke samples.

ESR showed that the grape seed and lycopene removed, or scavenged, up to 90 percent of the free radicals that would otherwise have passed through the filter. The researchers point out that these scavenging agents could be obtained in large quantities, for example, from byproducts of the tomato or wine industries.

The study has been published in the Journal of Visualized Experiments.”