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By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke in bars and restaurants can result in measurable levels of a toxin in workers' bodies that is known to cause lung cancer, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

They found nonsmoking workers in Oregon who worked a single shift in a bar or restaurant that allowed smoking were more likely to have a detectable level of NNK -- a carcinogen linked with lung cancer -- in their bodies than those who worked in nonsmoking establishments.

"NNK is only found in the body as a result of either smoking or breathing other people's smoke," said Michael Stark of the Multnomah County Health Department in Portland, Oregon, whose study appears in the American Journal of Public Health.

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