The result of two new studies on emissions from Electronic cigarettes has just been published in the professional journal Nicotine and Tobacco research. These studies show that e-cigarettes produce nicotine vapors which can be inhaled by people around smokers.
In the first study, the authors used a machine to “vape” and then measured the concentrations of nicotine and other volatile organic compounds, such as carbon monoxide, released by e-cigarette vapor. First, they compared these emissions to those of standard cigarettes. Then they asked five smokers to smoke cigarettes in one room and five more to smoke e-cigarettes in another room. They then observed that e-cigarettes are a source of exposure to nicotine but not to other compounds, and that in addition exposure to nicotine is ten times lower than that of tobacco.
The second study looked at the exposure of smokers themselves. It shows that e-cigarette smokers inhale much more nicotine than conventional cigarette smokers because they pull much harder and deeper on their electronic cigarette.
These two studies suggest that there is still a lot to be learned about the side effects of e-cigarettes. They thus join the recent findings of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases which requests the display of the detail of the composition of the liquids of these cigarettes and of warning labels because, according to it, “no scientific study has yet demonstrated the absence of harmfulness of these products “.
However, this information should be taken with a grain of salt. Indeed, the electronic cigarette remains much less harmful than the cigarette in the current state of knowledge because potentially dangerous substances are 9 to 450 times less concentrated in the smoke of electronic cigarettes than in a normal cigarette. Last November, around a hundred doctors (oncologists, pulmonologists, etc.) signed a e-cigarette appeal in the columns of the Parisian.
According to them, the danger of electronic cigarettes is infinitely less than that of tobacco, “since their vapor contains no CO, no tars, or fine solid particles”. A international conference at the Royal Society came to the same conclusion. Robert West, director of tobacco studies at the British Cancer Research Center, even said that “the switch to e-cigarettes for smokers could save millions of lives because nearly a third of people who try to quit smoking resort to electronic cigarettes. “
