Menthol in cigarettes is far more than just a simple flavor used by the Tobacco Cartel to attract and hold young, Black, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Asian and Native American smokers. Along with another potent terpene Borneol, Menthol has been used by Chinese doctors for centuries to help other medicines penetrate human skin, tissues and organs more deeply and work more effectively.
Because of that same quality, Menthol in cigarettes may be a very significant factor in the disproportionately high rates of chronic disease, including cancer and diabetes, and mental illness, including depression and suicide, among Black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native American Menthol cigarette smokers when these groups are compared to White non-menthol-smokers.
Menthol’s Overlooked Properties
Menthol possesses two critically important and ( quite strangely) overlooked properties:
- Tissue Penetration: Along with Borneol, Menthol is classified as an “orifice opener” in classical Chinese medicine. Menthol facilitates the absorption of chemicals through skin and tissues, including pharmaceuticals like Nicotine and pesticides like insecticides and fungicides.
- Toxicity Potentiation: Menthol acts to selectively enhance the toxicity of these deeply penetrating chemicals, amplifying and potentially broadening their harmful effects.
Supporting Research
Research highlighting Menthol’s unique mechanisms and effects:
“The permeability enhancing mechanism of menthol on skin lipids: a molecular dynamics simulation study” explains how menthol increases tissue absorption.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00894-017-3457-y
“The unusual action of essential oil component, menthol, in potentiating the effect of the carbamate insecticide, bendiocarb“ demonstrates Menthol’s ability to amplify insecticide toxicity on cockroaches
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048357518304541
“A Molecular Interpretation on the Different Penetration Enhancement Effect of Borneol and Menthol towards 5-Fluorouracil“ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29258240/
These and other similar findings suggest that Menthol in cigarettes can not only enhance the addictive and psychoactive effects of Nicotine but also carries far-reaching chronic health consequences due to the deep penetration of pesticides into body tissues.
You might ask – why test Menthol on cockroaches? Here’s why. As insects get more resistant to pesticides, industry looks for ways to make existing pesticides more effective. They’re finding that some plant essential oils can do this well, and Menthol is one of the most interesting. It readily penetrates living tissue, carrying chemicals with it, and it potentiates the chemicals it carries into the tissue.
Moreover, virtually all research on chemical permeability focuses just on human skin which is designed by nature as a barrier against penetration by chemicals. However, the epithelial tissues of the lungs and airways are designed by nature to absorb chemicals from gasses, not prevent their penetration, so the power of Menthol to penetrate these non-barrier tissues is much greater.
Of course, the Tobacco and Pharmaceutical Cartels have known all these properties for years, and have no doubt watched with endless amusement as all the anti-smoking, anti-menthol propagandists tried and failed to connect the dots. So, let’s do that now.
Connecting the Dots: Menthol, Disease, and Suicide
The implications of Menthol’s physiochemical properties are profound. Here are the real issues, completely overlooked by FDA, CDC and everyone else.
- Enhanced Chemical Absorption: Menthol significantly increases both Nicotine and pesticide chemicals uptake in human tissues, making addiction to Nicotine stronger and exposing smokers to heightened chronic disease and reproductive health risks from enhanced pesticide effects.
- Chronic Low-Level Pesticide Exposure: All commercial cigarettes, including Menthol variants, are contaminated with pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides, which are completely unregulated by any U.S. or State agency. Chronic exposure to these chemicals is strongly linked in widely published research literature to a multitude of cardiovascular, neurological, and endocrinological diseases – although the presence of pesticides in tobacco products has been zealously concealed by the Cartel and their US Government agency co-conspirators.
- Suicide Risks: Menthol Cigarette smokers are known to face higher rates of suicidal thinking, planning, attempting and succeeding. While many people are trying to understand, intervene with, and help suicidal people, nobody seems to have looked at the role of chronic pesticide exposure through smoking, much less through Mentholated cigarette smoking.
Military Racial Disparities in Smoking and Health Outcomes
Because smoking in the military is so well-documented, we can see many important differences between White smokers, who smoke predominantly non-menthol cigarettes, and all other racial groups, who smoke almost exclusively Menthol cigarettes. For example:
- Military Personnel: Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and Pacific Islander service members are much more likely to smoke Menthol cigarettes than their White counterparts.
- Health Outcomes: Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and Pacific Islander Menthol smokers chronic experience significantly higher rates of smoking-related diseases compared to White non-Menthol smokers.
- Suicide rates: Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander service members experience disproportionately high suicide rates. Because these groups are also disproportionately Menthol smokers, this demands that Menthol’s full role in causing and/or aggravating suicidal intentions and outcomes must receive closer examination.
1. “Smoking and Suicide: A Meta-Analysis”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4938402/
Summary of findings in this study: Cigarette smokers are known to be more likely to experience thoughts of suicide, make plans for suicide, attempt suicide, and die by suicide compared to nonsmokers.
- They think about it more often.
- Based on data from 8 studies, with strong statistical significance (P<0.001), smokers are almost twice as likely to have suicidal thoughts.
- They plan it more often.
- According to 6 studies, (P<0.001), smokers are over three times more likely to make suicide plans.
- They try it more often.
- According to data from 5 studies, all highly significant at (P<0.001), smokers are nearly 300% more likely to attempt suicide compared to non-smokers.
- They succeed more often.
- Smokers have about an 80% higher chance of dying by suicide (relative risk or RR = 1.83). This conclusion comes from 14 studies and is statistically significant (P=0.018).
While none of these studies directly or indirectly account for the influence of unrecognized pesticide contamination in cigarette smoke, because of the known impact of pesticide exposure on suicide, all studies on smoking and suicide reflect the presence and impact of these contaminants.
2. “Service Members and Vets Belonging to Racial Minority Groups Face Disproportionately High Suicide Rates”
3. “Menthol Smoking and Related Health Disparities“
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/menthol-tobacco/health-disparities.html
4. “Tobacco use among NH Black/African American, NH Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), Hispanic/Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AN), and Non-Hispanic (NH) White individuals.”
https://smokingcessationleadership.ucsf.edu/racialethnic-minorities
5. “Why Menthol Cigarettes Kill So Many Black Smokers”
6. “Suicide and suicidality in people exposed to pesticides: A systematic review and meta-analysis”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749123005444
” In conclusion, pesticide exposure may increase the risk of suicide and suicidality based on the current evidence.”
7. “The unusual action of essential oil component, menthol, in potentiating the effect of the carbamate insecticide, bendiocarb”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048357518304541
“In toxicity tests on cockroach, as well as in experiments on its nervous system, we demonstrated for the first time the potentiating effect of menthol on the efficacy of a carbamate insecticide.”
8.” The permeability enhancing mechanism of menthol on skin lipids: a molecular dynamics simulation study”
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00894-017-3457-y
9. “Plant Essential Oils Synergize and Antagonize Toxicity of Different Conventional Insecticides”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26010088/
“In synergism experiments, the toxicity of imidacloprid was synergized 16- to 20-fold by L. angustifolia and T. vulgaris essential oils ….”
9. “Essential oils enhance the toxicity of permethrin”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27800630/
“Botanical essential oils have the capability of increasing the efficacy of permethrin allowing for a natural alternative to classic chemical synergists, like PBO”.
10. “Influence of Menthol on The Permeability of Artificial Cell Membranes to Acrolein, Benzo(A)Pyrene (BAP), and 4-(Methylnitrosamino)- 1-(3-Pyridyl)-1-Butanone (NNK)”
https://www.coresta.org/sites/default/files/abstracts/2010_TSRC38_Robinson.pdf
This so-called study by a tobacco company (Lorillard) is an interesting example of the use of data to present misleading and self-justifying “scientific” conclusions. It shows Menthol’s ability to enhance tissue permeability but only at concentrations higher found than in cigarettes. However, these permeability tests were run one time for a few hours at high concentrations – nothing close to how a menthol smoker’s lung and airway tissues are exposed. And that’s the point of all Tobacco Cartel “research”. It’s always fun and useful to ask going in: What are they trying to hide and how are they hiding it? There are only so many ways to be deceptive in print.
11. Association Between Chronic Exposure to Pesticide and Suicide
People who were exposed to pesticides were about 1.9 times more likely to die by suicide compared to those who weren’t exposed, even after accounting for other factors. Groups that used more pesticides had an even higher risk, roughly 2.4 times greater. Additionally, individuals with a dependency or addiction to pesticides had the highest suicide rates, with a risk nearly doubled compared to others.
12. Pesticides as the drivers of neuropsychotic diseases, cancers, and teratogenicity
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30411285/
“This review discusses the biological mechanisms of pesticide-driven pathogenesis such as the activation or inhibition of caspase, serine protease, acetylcholinesterase and documentss the pesticide-exposure-caused health deterioration in USA, India, and Africa.”
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