How Long Does Nicotine Stay In Your System: Saliva, Urine, Blood

Smoking is still a hot topic from 1800’s until now. Do you know the cigarette smoking was restricted in public area since 1980’s. We are always curious that why smoking is dangerous and affected to our health. With article “How long does nicotine stay in your system?”, we hope that you can understand why nicotine effects on the body, however, you can find out the suitable way to quit smoking.

What is nicotine and where does nicotine come from?

Nicotine compounds more than 40,000 chemicals and be found on tobacco, snuff, cigars, cigarettes. These create addiction thus it is difficult to quit it when you use it often even once. Until now, the exact reason of using tobacco is unclear however according to some studies showed that nicotine was used for medicinal purposes such as cure colds, reduce a toothache or ease arthritis.

Some other facts about nicotine you should be considered are:

• Nicotine also presents in other plants such as tomatoes, peppers, potatoes or eggplant
• Eating tobacco plants leads to toxic to insects, but Hornworm Caterpillar exhales nicotine via holes.
• Nicotine is used as an insecticide in the world.

What does nicotine do?

First, nicotine is inhaled then it metabolizes into cotinine. This substance will be lived in some organs such as liver, lungs, urine or blood. Otherwise, cotinine is an indicator and a reliable biomarker which may be detected in the saliva.

It is necessary to know how long does it take for nicotine to leave your system or how nicotine affects to our body with addictive ability. After going some important organs of the body, nicotine enters into bloodstream then move to the brain. When it is located in the brain, it will connect to and activate the cholinergic receptor.

The cholinergic receptors are also presented in muscles, adrenal glands or heart. These factors are activated by a neurotransmitter that is produced in the nerves of peripheral nervous system and nerve endings. It is called acetylcholine. In addition, nicotine acts in the brain among 8-20 seconds of an inhalation [1].

What are the effects of nicotine?

• When nicotine goes into the brain it will disrupt normal functions. If one smokes regularly it will change the number of cholinergic receptors.
• Heart rate or blood pressure might go up when the adrenaline in the brain is increased by nicotine stimulation.
• When you suddenly stop smoking your body will suffer from a withdrawal situation that consists of some specific symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, delusion or sleeplessness…
• It is an addictive substance; therefore, you have to smoke it more frequently. According to the American Heart Association, smoking is one of the hardest addictions to quit.
• Besides bad effects, nicotine may reduce the appetite, and boost mood, promote the memory and cognition as well. However, do you know how much nicotine is in one cigarette might cause nicotine addiction. To find the answer, you can read more information below.

How long does nicotine stay in your blood?

You wonder to know how long does nicotine stay in your blood; the answer is nicotine last from one to three days, however, cotinine may be detected up to 10 days.

Nicotine test can detect whether nicotine in the blood or not. Otherwise, nicotine blood test might show the presence of nicotine and how much nicotine in the bloodstream. You also know more about cotinine and another anabasine as well.

Sometimes, the false positives of having nicotine are popular with nicotine blood test. The reasons are the appearance of thiocyanate, taking acetaminophen or laboratory errors [1].

How long does nicotine stay in your urine?

Depend on the type of cigarettes that you smoked, but it’s estimated that about 12 milligrams (mg) of nicotine is contained in one cigarette. With frequently smoking, nicotine will stay in your urine system about one week up to three weeks. For one who smokes infrequently, cotinine will remain about four days in your urine system.

Nicotine urine test shows you the presence of nicotine in your urine and how much nicotine. For a current smoker, the test will be positive with 1,000 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). If you haven’t smoked about two weeks, the result might be over 30 ng/mL. Otherwise, each lab has different range thus you should discuss with your doctor.

How long does nicotine stay in your saliva?

Cotinine can be found in the saliva more than 10 hours, some cases from 2 to 4 days. Normally, nicotine saliva test is the most preferred because it doesn’t need handle urine specimens and provide an exact amount of tobacco that is used by the smoker.

How long does nicotine stay in your system?

In fact, how long does tobacco or nicotine stay in your system depend on the amount and varies from person to person. Insightful, there are three types of level smoking including:

• Light smoking who smoke once per week
• Moderate smoking who smoke more than once up to three times per week
• Heavy smoking who smoke everyday

With light smoking, nicotine will stay in the system around 1-3 days.

If you are in a moderate smoking level, it can take longer.

For the heavy user, traces of nicotine can be found in your system up to a year.

Factors that influence how long does it take for nicotine to get out of your system

• Medication you are taking: The current medication which you are taking can affect the metabolism nicotine process. Antibiotic and phenobarbital will increase the metabolism process. Antifungal or high blood pressure medication can slow down the metabolism process [2].
• The frequency of usage: the more using of tobacco, the more time nicotine will stay in your system.
• Age: this factor also plays a major role in the eliminating nicotine out of the body. When you are older the ability of your organs typically liver does not work well to clear nicotine.
• Genes and hormones: People who are in pregnant or taking estrogen might metabolize nicotine quickly. Otherwise, women also have fast metabolism more than men. Caucasians or Hispanics metabolize nicotine faster than Asians, Americans, and Africans.
• Smoking time in a day: The period that slowest nicotine cleansing is from 6 p.m to 3 a.m.

How to test for nicotine?

Nicotine blood test: you might take a nicotine blood test to determine the appearance of nicotine in your bloodstream and how much of nicotine.

Nicotine saliva test: This is one of the accurate nicotine tests. It can find from 0 to 2,000 ng/mL level of nicotine. People will take a saliva sample in a strip then soak for 20 minutes. The result will provide the amount of nicotine that is exposed.

Nicotine urine test: The tool is used for nicotine urine test can be sold over the counter. Otherwise, when you detect the cotinine, getting a urine sample is necessary that is dipped about 5 minutes. The result is positive or negative. Additionally, 200ng/ml is the standard cutoff.

Questions and Answers

1. How long does tobacco stay in your system?

Tobacco contains mainly nicotine; therefore the duration of nicotine stay in your system depend on the amount of smoking and varies person to person. Otherwise, it will normally stay in the saliva more than 10 hours, in the bloodstream probably from 1 to 10 days and in the urine around 15 to 20 days.

2. How long does coffee stay in your system?

Coffee contains caffeine, therefore, the duration to reach its peak levels from 15 to 45 minutes. Furthermore, people who are smokers, with caffeine that takes only three hours for the half-life in the bloodstream. Insightful, who are heavy smokers are typically heavy coffee-drinkers.

3. How long does it take for nicotine to leave your body?

Actually, you should consider the level of smoking and depend on the organs of the body such as urine, saliva or blood. They will clear nicotine in the different time. To know more detail you can read the above article. Thanks

4. How long can nicotine be detected?

There are some common tests to detect the traces of nicotine or cotinine such as nicotine urine test, nicotine saliva test or nicotine blood test. For nicotine urine test, you can buy simple tool over the counter then test by yourself with detail instruction.

5. How many milligram of nicotine are in one cigarette?

One cigarette contains from 8 mg to 20 mg of nicotine. Normally, it will be 12 mg of nicotine in one cigarette.

6. How long does it take to smoke a cigarette?

This depends on your mood or your level of smoking.