The research is the latest to utilize a sophisticated fingerprint technology developed to detect contaminants in foods and waste to vape fluids and aerosol.
The findings, which were recently reported in the magazine Chemical Research in Toxicology, show that individuals that vaping were utilizing a technology where hazards have not to be completely assessed and that they may be exposed to substances that have negative medical impacts.
E-Cigarettes Contain Thousands Of Unknown Substances
Those who love smoking prefer to get different options, among which the use of E-cigarette is considered as the latest one. However, they don’t know that such vaping can harm their health as it pours thousands of health affecting chemicals into the body, damaging the health to a significant extent. Recently the experts have carried out a study that has revealed facts about vaping.
Scientists discovered that vaping aerosols include hundreds of unidentified compounds and elements that producers do not disclose, include hazardous compounds and caffeine.
“Existing research that compared e-cigarettes with normal cigarettes found that cigarette contaminants are much lower in e-cigarettes. The problem is that e-cigarette aerosols contain other completely uncharacterized chemicals that might have health risks that we don’t yet know about,” said senior author Carsten Prasse, an assistant professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins. “More and more young people are using these e-cigarettes and they need to know what they’re being exposed to.”
Hundreds of new substances were discovered in the e-liquid, and the number of chemicals in the aerosol grew dramatically. They also discovered hydrocarbon-like chemicals, which are generally linked with burning, but which marketers claim do not occur while vaping. The hazardous condensed hydrocarbons produced after burning in regular smokes were harmful.
The researchers evaluated four famous goods: Mi-Salt, Vuse, Juul, and Blu, utilizing a chemical fingerprint method developed on liquid chromatography/high-resolution analysis spectrometry, which was previously used to detect organic substances in wastewater, foodstuff, and blood. Even though vape goods come in dozens of varieties, they only evaluated nicotine juice for uniformity.
“One of the main ways electronic cigarettes have been marketed is that they operate at temperatures below combustion, which would make them safer than traditional smoking,” said lead author Mina Tehrani, a postdoctoral fellow in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Our study shows that this novel fingerprinting approach can be applied to assess whether combustion-like processes are going on.”
Nearly 2,000 compounds were discovered, a massive large percentage of which were unknown. Six of the compounds identified by the researchers are possibly dangerous, included three molecules never before discovered in e-cigarettes. Tehrani was taken aback when he discovered caffeine in 3 of the four goods. Caffeine had already been found in e-cigarettes but in flavors that are caffeine-focused, such as tea and coffee.
“That might be giving smokers an extra kick that is not disclosed,” she said. “We wonder if they are adding it intentionally.”
“People just need to know that they’re inhaling a very complex mixture of chemicals when they vape. And for a lot of these compounds we have no idea what they are,” Prasse said. “I have a problem with how vaping is being marketed as more healthy than smoking cigarettes. In my opinion, we are just not at the point when we can say that.”
Ana M. Rule, a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health expert on chemicals exposures through the vape, argues that most youngsters who vapor have ever smoke, so they are not choosing a healthy decision, but rather a dangerous one.
“There are millions of middle school and high-school students vaping that would not otherwise think of smoking,” she says. “For them, there is no risk reduction, only increased risk.”
