e-cigarettes | Wellness Secrets of a SuperAger

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The study, which appears online Jan. 4, 2020, in Tobacco Regulatory Science, found that nicotine concentrations were five to eight times higher in rodents that were exposed to JUUL versus other tobacco products. The work also supports an earlier finding by the same researchers of harm to blood vessels from brief exposures to both direct and secondhand smoke from cigarettes, little cigars and combustible marijuana, and to aerosol from IQOS “heat-not-burn” tobacco products.

JUUL and earlier generation e-cigs are promoted as being less hazardous than cigarettes. Since 2016, there has been a dramatic increase in youth e-cig use, with JUUL devices particularly effective at recruiting teenagers to begin nicotine usage. A recent study found 27.5 percent of high school students and 10.5 percent of eighth graders currently use e-cigs, with more than half of both groups using JUUL as their preferred choice.

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I have written about the dangers of smoking regular cigarettes for years. Smoking E-cigarettes is widely believed to reduce the damage to our systems compared with that of tobacco smokes. However, the tank-style ones may actually be more harmful.

A team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside, has found the concentration of metals in electronic cigarette aerosols — or vapor — has increased since tank-style electronic cigarettes were introduced in 2013.

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Electronic cigarettes, which consist of a battery, atomizing unit, and refill fluid, are now available in new tank-style designs, equipped with more powerful batteries and larger capacity reservoirs for storing more refill fluid. But the high-power batteries and atomizers used in these new styles can alter the metal concentrations that transfer into the aerosol.

“These tank-style e-cigarettes operate at higher voltage and power, resulting in higher concentrations of metals, such as lead, nickel, iron, and copper, in their aerosols,” said Monique Williams, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Molecular, Cell, and Systems Biology, and the first author of the research paper that appears today in Scientific Reports. “Most of the metals in e-cigarette aerosols likely come from the nichrome wire, tin solder joints, brass clamps, insulating sheaths, and wicks — components of the atomizer unit.” Continue reading →