Slashdot Mirror
E-cigarettes 'Potentially As Harmful As Tobacco Cigarettes' (uconn.edu)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A study by chemists at the University of Connecticut offers new evidence that electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are potentially as harmful as tobacco cigarettes. Using a new low-cost, 3-D printed testing device, UConn researchers found that e-cigarettes loaded with a nicotine-based liquid are potentially as harmful as unfiltered cigarettes when it comes to causing DNA damage. The researchers also found that vapor from non-nicotine e-cigarettes caused as much DNA damage as filtered cigarettes, possibly due to the many chemical additives present in e-cigarette vapors. Cellular mutations caused by DNA damage can lead to cancer.
While nicotine is a dangerous chemical poison (and useful insecticide) I was always under the impression it was other chemicals in cigarettes that were even more harmful.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Nicotine is the most dangerous part of a traditional cigarette, per mg. However, much like with coffee and caffeine, nicotine is a very small portion of the traditional delivery method. At the volumes in a normal cigarette, the burnt paper smoke is enough of a lung cancer risk even if it was completely emptied of tobacco products and additives.
At different times, cigarettes have had different additives with different levels of inhaled toxicity, but the smoke always consists primarily of burnt plant materials, filling the smokers' lungs with carcinogenic ash and some small amount of very addictive, fairly toxic nicotine.
Author Contributions
The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Acknowledgment
The authors thank the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH, Grant No. ES03154 for financial support. We thank Islam M. Mosa for SEM images.
https://www.gov.uk/government/...