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E-Cigarettes Emit Toxic Vapors, Says Study (upi.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from UPI: All electronic cigarettes emit harmful chemicals, and levels of those toxic compounds are affected by factors such as temperature, type and age of the device, a new study finds. In laboratory tests, scientists found that the heat-related breakdown of propylene glycol and glycerin -- two solvents found in most e-cigarette liquids -- causes emissions of toxic chemicals such as acrolein, acetaldehyde and formaldehyde. All three are either respiratory irritants or carcinogens, the investigators said. The researchers also found that levels of harmful chemicals in e-cigarette vapor increase between the first few puffs and later puffs as the device gets hotter, and with each use of the device.The new study was published July 27 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. "Advocates of e-cigarettes say emissions are much lower than from conventional cigarettes, so you're better off using e-cigarettes," study corresponding author Hugo Destaillats said in a Berkeley news release. "I would say, that may be true for certain users -- for example, long-time smokers that cannot quit -- but the problem is, it doesn't mean that they're healthier. Regular cigarettes are super unhealthy. E-cigarettes are just unhealthy," he explained. The FDA will start regulating e-cigarettes like tobacco on August 8, 2016.

7 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. Always question a study... by Izuzan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That does not give the temp they are burning the e juice at.

    Burning PG will give off harmfull chemicals. But ecigs dont get hot enough unless you are sitting there with the button pressed.
    With the advent of temperature controll in ecigs the temperature does not get anywhere close to burning the PG.

  2. Sigh, this again by RevDisk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's already covered in the UK govt report: https://www.gov.uk/government/...

    Flip to page 75. The report is fairly well written, and surprisingly not someone trying to prove pre-defined results via poorly conducted experiments.

    This is only applicable to mechanized vaping tests. Essentially, you need to burn the vaping chemicals rather than atomize them. As someone that quit vaping, I can testify that you know when your vaping unit get cranked to the max while being in your pocket and fried the coils, along with some of the nicotine liquid. It is extremely unpleasant. Theoretically a person could continue to try to inhale the results, but it would be a spectacularly unpleasant experience. It's extremely noticeable

    . It's called a 'dry hit' and it's pretty rare under normal circumstances. I've had... three, maybe? It's certainly not good for you, but probably not as bad for me as my old pack a day of cigarettes would be if I continued smoking.

    1. Re:Sigh, this again by lawaetf1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's really interesting how vaping is different from cigs in terms of addiction. I switched from cigs to 12mg vaping and that was fine for a while.. but then, oddly, I found I could no longer handle 12mg! I couldn't understand it, I would walk to work, puffing along the way like I always do, and then find I was having trouble swallowing, terribly anxious amongst other symptoms. Looked up "nicotine overdose" and bingo. Switched to 6mg and now down to 3. Every attempt I made to "cut down" with cigs failed miserably. Somehow vaping gives you a glide path away from the addiction.

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  3. Re:So in other words... by jellomizer · · Score: 1, Interesting

    However smoking is rather popular around the world, in countries with less than free markets as well.
    Now these e-Cig are safer than smoking... However they are not treated as a way to step down your smoking addiction. But are marketing the cool new drug for hipsters. So now kids no longer look like walking tail pipes but more like walking nuclear reactors meltdowns with huge amount of vapor puffing out of their face.
    Getting them addicted to nicotine. Sure it won't kill you as fast as burning chemical treated plants, but still the drug high is just just putting poison in your system and your body reacting to it.
    Sure there are other socially acceptable drugs, like caffeine and I had my morning coffee today, where taking too much can be bad for you. However most of these other like drinking coffee are more natural form of ingestion, ingesting it like food and drink, where the body had additional features to filter out bad stuff (As naturally we would eat stuff that have a lot more nasty chemicals in it, often produced by plants and animals as self defense mechnisms). Vs. breathing it where it more directly goes into our bloodstream, by passing much of the safety filters. So if you drank too much coffee you would would be peeing most of it out.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. Re:If a cigarette doesn't "smoke", is it harmful? by drunken_boxer777 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With a nick like this I have to ask: Pissed that they banned public drinking but public smoking is still ok?

    Nick was inspired by one of my favorite Jackie Chan flicks, not two of my pastimes rolled into one.

    Strawman: I'm not advocating for a ban on e-cigs in public. I only ask e-cig users not to vape in places where smoking is banned.

    False equivalence: If the mere act of drinking was harmful to others, then it would be equivalent and I'd certainly have no basis to oppose bans in restaurants and airplanes. (I'm indifferent that public drinking is not allowed in most places.)

  5. Everyone can quit even long time smokers by dadelbunts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I went from smoking 2 packs a day for 10 years to, nothing. Started vaping a couple of years ago, gradually moved the niccottene content lower and lower, and now i dont even vape anymore. The concept that somene just CANNOT quit is plain wrong.

  6. Re:If a cigarette doesn't "smoke", is it harmful? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Counterpoint. This is only the largest study; there are a lot of less-interesting studies that try to reproduce a lot of studies which, as you pointed out, do exist and do show a lot of good data that second-hand smoke causes health issues. My problem is with this:

    the vast preponderance of evidence points one way, and it's not the way you say it does.

    There *is* a vast preponderance of evidence pointing one way, in the same way that there's a vast preponderance of evidence that video games make kids into murderers or that homosexuality can be cured by therapy akin to torture. There's also a significant failure rate in reproducing those same studies; a full examination of the evidence shows only weak statistical linkage, if any.

    I actually rewrote that claim multiple times before posting. It would be incorrect to say that second-hand cigarette smoke has been shown *not* to cause any health effects, in spite of the rather large and statistically-sound study released recently; it has *not* *reliably* been shown to cause any health effects. There is no overwhelming body of evidence; there is a lot of difficult analysis that's hard to control for, and a lot of outcomes that don't reproduce well. The level of certainty is about even with chance.

    There is also a lot of evidence that high-carbohydrate diets (above 40% of calories) cause arterial build-up, and high-fat diets do not. The original consensus is based on flawed statistics, and current studies don't yet reconcile a concrete position.

    There is also emerging literature suggesting AHA-recommended levels of sodium cause heart attacks. Below 1350mg/day will likely cause your heart to stop (too much potassium will do this, too); while high levels of sodium (up to 6,000mg/day) have no detrimental effect after about 3 days. Your kidneys release hormones to restore homeostatic balance and pump all that sodium out of your blood, but it takes a few days and you have high blood pressure until then. Keeping people on diets long-term is hard, and flaky; modern research looks at high-sodium-intake societies and compares heart attack rates with low-sodium-intake societies, which has its own problems.

    The thing is we have cancer groups, the USDA, CDC, and AHA ignoring new literature and doubling-down on old literature. We also have economists contradicting the BLS on things like minimum wage. Every large organization takes a position and uses evidence to back it up; the whole of evidence necessarily outpaces them, because shifting your position as a large entity requires a much stronger degree of certainty than doing it as a small entity.