Quit Smoking ! Even E-Cigarettes which were thought to be safe emit carcinogenic vapors
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are battery-powered products that typically deliver nicotine with flavorings and other chemicals to users in vapor from liquid instead of smoke.
The debate over whether or not e-cigarettes are safe has been raging since e-cigarettes and vaping first came on the scene. While one side — particularly the manufacturers of e-cigarettes — maintained that vaping was a safe alternative to smoking tobacco, government regulators and anti-smoking groups have worked hard to inform the public that e-cigarettes are, in fact, hazardous to your health, and may even be a gateway for young people towards tobacco products. Now, it seems that the scientific evidence is mounting against those that say that vaping is safe.
The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, claims that the chemical substances that emerge from e-cigarettes contained cancer-threatening chemicals, so the FDA and producers advise controlling the devices.
For this study, Destaillats and a team of researchers simulated vaping using three types of e-liquids in two different vaporizers operated at various battery power settings. The two e-cigarettes were quite different, one fairly cheap with one heating coil, the other more expensive
with two heating coils in parallel. The researchers used gas and liquid chromatography to determine what was in the vapor, looking at the first puffs as well as later puffs after the device heated up and reached a “steady state.”One finding was that the first and last puffs produce widely varying emissions. Using a custom-built vaping apparatus emulating realistic vaping habits, researchers drew on the e-cigarette by taking puffs lasting 5 seconds every 30 seconds. They found that vapor temperature rose quickly in the first 5 to 10 minutes until reaching a steady state temperature at around the twentieth puff.
Correspondingly, emissions levels between the first few puffs and the steady state increased by a factor of 10 or more in some cases, depending on the device, the battery voltage, and the emitted compound. For example, for acrolein, a severe eye and respiratory irritant, a single-coil e-cigarette operated at 3.8 volts emitted 0.46 micrograms per puff in the first five puffs, but at the steady state it emitted 8.7 micrograms per puff. “When you apply the same voltage to the double-coil e-cigarette you see a lot less emissions,” said co-author and Berkeley Lab researcher Lara Gundel. “We think it has to do with lower temperatures at each of the coil surfaces.”
For comparison, conventional cigarettes emit 400 to 650 micrograms of acrolein per cigarette, accounting for both mainstream and sidestream emissions. Assuming 20 puffs on an e-cigarette is equivalent to smoking a conventional cigarette, Gundel said, then total emissions of acrolein for an e-cigarette are about 90 to 100 micrograms.
Separately, to test effects due to device aging, researchers used a single device over nine consecutive 50-puff cycles without cleaning. Again, emissions of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acrolein–all either carcinogens or respiratory irritants–increased with usage. “In some cases we saw aldehyde levels increase 60 percent between cycles 1 and 9,” said co-author and Berkeley Lab researcher Mohamad Sleiman.
The researchers note in their paper: “This effect is consistent with the buildup of polymerization byproducts on or near the coil leading to accumulation of the sort of residues that are often referred to in the blogosphere as ‘coil gunk’ or ‘caramelization.’ Heating these residues would provide a secondary source of volatile aldehydes.”
Lastly, because many e-cigarettes allow users to control the voltage, the researchers systematically investigated the effect of voltage on emissions. They found that as the voltage increased, both the amount of e-liquid consumed per puff and the vapor temperature were higher. In the case of acrolein and formaldehyde, the amount formed at the highest voltage of 4.8V was an order of magnitude higher than the amount at the lowest voltage of 3.3V.
Destaillats takes pains to note that the results do not mean that e-cigarettes are safe to use at lower temperatures. “We found there are emissions of toxic chemicals at any temperature at which you use the device,” he said. “And the higher the temperature, the more emissions.”
With the study researchers aimed to conscientize vapers and legal regulations of the devices, hoping regulations start treating e-cigarettes as a separate device than regular smokes.
Criticism of the study has emerged, several e-cigarette experts are claiming the study was unfounded and the conditions in which the devices were tested, were unreal.
On the other hand, the FDA might be aiming to create a campaign so e-cigarettes are prohibited as they can cause severe damages to the human health.
