snus and ulcers

[Son Goku]

I've been snusing for a month now and I think it's messing up my stomach. Yesterday I had what felt like an ulcer flare-up. Can snus cause this?

[KarlvB]

The short answer is probably not.

Some more info (and a complete overview of the medical literature available about snus)

http://nzhta.chmeds.ac.nz/publicatio...ss_tobacco.pdf

http://ki.se/content/1/c6/05/00/01/s...NUSfeb2008.pdf

http://estoc.org/Archive/PDF/Fact%20...ets6-15-07.pdf

There is no evidence that Swedish snus causes any of a variety of gastrointestinal effects, including heartburn, peptic ulcer, Crohn's disease, or ulcerative colitis.

Two epidemiology studies done in Scandinavia have specifically examined whether snus is associated with gastrointestinal effects (Bolinder et al. 1992, Persson et al. 1993). Neither found that use of snus was associated with any significant increase in risk of the four outcomes listed above, after the effect of smoking was ruled out.

[Soft Morning, City!]

I have GERD and my condition has improved markedly since I started using snus as opposed to smoking 2.5 packs per day. It's not the same as ulcers, but it's a sometimes painful stomach/throat ailment that really pisses me off when it acts up. Snus has been great. My GERD acts up less than half as often as it did when I smoked heavily.

[Quemador]

Only one way to find out for yourself: try spitting for a few days.