Vaping and how to stop another chemical generation – Newsroom

Opinion: A recent study published in Natures Scientific Reports recently presented a novel approach to predicting which chemicals might be emitted from a vape.

During heating, chemicals can break down into smaller molecules. A process known as pyrolysis. This study combined deep learning computational methods with chemical structure information from experimental databases.

They looked at 180 flavouring chemicals and predicted which breakdown molecules could be created, finding six or seven chemicals emerging from each single flavouring chemical.

By matching these predicted chemicals with a large chemistry database containing information on potential harms of different chemicals, they found that 127 of the chemicals predicted were classed as acutely toxic, 153 as health hazards and 225 as irritants. This is a useful study, as it is challenging to capture and measure all the chemicals being emitted from an e-cigarette.

Vaping was not so long ago heralded as a revolutionary invention to curb smoking rates among diehard smokers, before it was repurposed to appeal to young people, consequently creating a new generation of nicotine dependants. Last year the e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs Inc in the US agreed to pay US$462 million to six states and the District of Columbia to resolve investigations into its marketing of addictive vaping products to children, with bright attractive ads, giveaways, easily concealed products and flavours aimed at the palates of young people.

Vaping works by using a heating coil to heat up an e-liquid to transform it into an aerosol to be inhaled.

The key ingredients are propylene glycol and vegetable glycerol, which act as a carrier for nicotine and flavourings and produce a nice cloud of vapour reminiscent of smoking. Flavourings and nicotine are added in smaller amounts but at variable concentrations.

More than 400 brands and 8000 flavours of vaping products were reported in 2016/17. Flavours can be roughly divided into tobacco, menthol, alcohol/drink, fruit and candy flavours, but with myriad flavours within each category: cinnamon, red hot cinnamon, blueberry, raspberry, watermelon, banana, kiwifruit, passionfruit Some vaping websites invite consumers to come up with flavour requests. As e-cigarette producers know (as do chip, ice cream, wine, and craft beer makers etc) our craving for novel taste is insatiable.

There is a large range of complex chemical profiles used within different e-liquids.

Many manufacturers specify that their ingredients are recognised as safe for oral consumption, but little is known about their health effects when inhaled. Vape aerosols have been found to contain known toxicants, including carcinogens and heavy metals, and a recent study found cadmium, lead, and uranium in urine samples from regular vapers. Our own research at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute has found silicon, iron, zinc, and chromium in vaping products.

Potentially toxic compounds include volatile organic compounds such as benzene, degradation products such as carbonyl compounds (for example formaldehyde), and heavy metal particles. The levels of toxic substances found in e-cigarette vapour are far lower than those found in cigarette smoke, with one study showing levels of toxicants were 9-450 times lower in vapour than cigarette smoke.

However, though thought to be safer than conventional cigarettes, they still expose users to potentially harmful chemicals.

New Zealand has one of the highest youth vaping rates in the world with 18 percent of 14-15-year-olds reported to be regular vapers, compared with, for example, the 7.6 percent of UK 11-17-year-olds who vape, and the 5 percent of New South Wales 14-17-year-olds who reported vapingbetween 10 and 30 days in the previous month in a 2021 survey.

Though e-cigarettes have been welcomed into New Zealand as a smoking cessation aid, there has been an unexpected uptake of vaping by never-smokers. Among daily vapers aged 18-24, 37 percent are never-smokers and in those aged 15-17, the proportion of never-smokers is even higher at 76 percent. Mori are also over-represented in vaping prevalence rates, with one survey showing that a quarter of 14-15-year-old Mori females are vaping daily.

What can we do about this? Obviously, regulation of the products would help, but so far this has proven to be fraught and complicated, and those with financial interests at stake tend to find ways to get around the rules. But a study in the US examined how the appeal of e-cigarettes among adolescents and young people would be affected by the flavours available, if theyd be likely to stop vaping if they couldnt buy so many flavours.

The national survey of 1400 adolescents and young adults found that 38.8 percent of those surveyed said theyd likely stop using their e-cigarette if tobacco and menthol-flavoured e-liquids were the only options, whereas 70.8 percent would stop vaping under a tobacco-only product standard.

Though we know vaping carries fewer chemicals and less harmful ones than smoking, we dont yet know how this translates to health impacts.

Our research is testing several hypotheses to determine whether vaping leads to the same/similar health impacts of smoking, including studying inflammation (the bodys normal defence mechanism), lung lymphatics (which coordinates the immune system response of the lungs) and cardiovascular impacts. This new study published in Nature and our current research is aiming to predict the long-term health effects of vaping before they become widespread in the rapidly growing vaping population.

There is a well-documented latency period for tobacco-related disease that spans a minimum of 25 years, and by then smoking created one of the greatest public health crises of the 20th century. It will be at least two decades until definitive findings from long-term studies on e-cigarette use are available, but such research is urgent to ensure we prevent an epidemic of vaping-related disease in our future generations.

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Vaping and how to stop another chemical generation - Newsroom