Student Spotlight: Purva Korgaonkar

Second year Public Health Sciences Doctoral Student, Purva Korgaonkar, recently presented a poster at the Americon College of Epidemiology meeting in Atlanta, GA.

“The title for the American College of Epidemiology poster presentation held on September 28th 2015 was “Relationship between serum cotinine and exhaled nitric oxide levels in US adults: Data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2009-2012”. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey was used to assess the relationship between serum cotinine, a biomarker of nicotine exposure, and exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) levels among US population above 20 years of age. Nitric Oxide (NO) plays a role in determining the susceptibility towards developing infections and management of inflammatory diseases, and nicotine metabolites suppress the macrophage phagocytic activity in the lungs. The results showed that nicotine suppresses FeNO levels regardless of the smoking status. Among non-smokers, lower FeNO levels can signal development of lung diseases due to secondhand smoke.”

The abstract is available by subscription in the Annals of Epidemiology or through the UNCC Server.