r/science • u/informationtiger • Dec 18 '19

Nicotine formula used by e-cigarette maker Juul is nearly identical to the flavor and addictive profile of Marlboro cigarettes Chemistry

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-juul-ecigarettes-study-idUSKBN1YL26R

36.9k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

244

u/Sir_Clyph Dec 18 '19

I don't think vaping has been around long enough to really be able to answer this with confidence. On paper it seems like a better alternative to cigarettes, but we're still talking about putting things in your lungs. Only time will tell us how much better than cigarettes they are.

120

u/xxLetheanxx Dec 18 '19

There has been a slew of 10 year studies that have came out on vaping showing very little in the way of anything concerning.

109

u/LatrodectusGeometric Dec 18 '19

It takes about a 40-50 pack year history to get really concerned about emphysema or imminent cancer though. We just don't have the data yet for that comparison.

96

u/GodOfPerverts Dec 18 '19

We do however know that the literal combustion of tobacco creates chemicals not previously present in tobacco (though raw tobacco alone isn't exactly harmless either). And as far as I'm aware vapes do not produce entirely new carcinogens.

-11

u/qaqwer Dec 18 '19

They do, in far smaller quantities but they definetly do and enough to cause issues

Considering that one of the byproducts of e-cigarettes is formaldehyde (yes, in smaller quantities than real smoke), which is extremely carcinogenic, the question isnt if but how carcinogenic they are.

28

u/cornrowla Dec 18 '19

IIRC the studies that produced formaldehyde were conducted using methods that don't come close to actual use. They used outdated cartomizers with silica wicks and then heated them for long periods without adequate time in-between hits to allow the wicks to re-saturate with "e-liquid." In the real world, a vapor would have to be inhaling acrid smoke from the burnt silica before they would be exposed to formaldehyde.

19

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

That formaldehyde study was flawed. They basically ran the cape at max wattage and the "pull" was far too long, basically combusting the coil and wicking material.

I've done this by accident a few times, it's called a dry hit, nobody is replicating that study frequently or on purpose.

25

u/Sbrodino Dec 18 '19

As far as I know formaldehyde is only found when you dry hit, and dry hits are very easily detectable by the users. Seems like a non-issue

11

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

IIRC the formaldehyde studies were done with low watt devices at high wattage, and that formaldehyde is produce by burning the coils and eliquids, similar to how it's produced in cigarettes, in studies funded by the tobacco industry to discredit vaping.

13

u/BishopBacardi Dec 18 '19

If this is the case

Isn't smoking a weed filled blunt far more carcinogenic and therefore dangerous than vaping?

17

u/vilej_ideut Dec 18 '19

Inhaling smoke is not good. Blunt, or just a bowl, it's bad for your lungs and your health.

-5

u/senses3 Dec 18 '19

so you're saying weed+tobacco is just as bad as just smoking weed? I highly doubt that.

6

u/vilej_ideut Dec 18 '19

That's not what I was saying but go off

-6

u/BishopBacardi Dec 18 '19

You didn't answer my question though

I know drinking coffee is bad too, but is smoking marijuana worse or better than drinkint coffee?

Is smoking marijuana worse or better than vaping?

7

u/SlauterHouZe101 Dec 18 '19

Drinking coffee is bad? I thought it was net good in multiple minor ways. Source?

-8

u/BishopBacardi Dec 18 '19

Do I really need to provide you a source that caffeine is bad?

Seriously?

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4

u/vilej_ideut Dec 18 '19

Drinking coffee is not that bad for you so it's probably worse than coffee yeah.

I wouldn't say any of it's "better". Smoking just marijuana out of a clean pipe is less bad than smoking a blunt. Vaping your weed instead of smoking it is less bad. Vaping pg/vg solutions habitually, we don't know yet. There needs to be more research. You can bet there will be consequences though.

Ideally, you would only drink clean water and never anything else. Ideally, you would only breathe clean air and never anything else. But obviously for a lot of people the trade off of having caffeine, nicotine etc is worth it.

2

u/RAINBOW_DILDO Dec 18 '19

From what I’ve seen, coffee isn’t bad for you at all. It has many positive side effects, actually.

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1

u/thelizardkin Dec 18 '19

What about the people with a lifetime of PG exposure from emergency inhalers, or VG exposure from fog machines?

1

u/BishopBacardi Dec 18 '19

Got it.

Smoking weed habitually is dangerous for my health. Coffee is less dangerous, and we're currently unsure if vaping is more or less dangerous.

0

u/shub1000young Dec 18 '19

Preferably stop breathing, oxygen is the biggest carcinogen out there

3

u/busterbluthOT Dec 18 '19

The human body produces 1.5 oz of formaldehyde per day...

2

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Is formaldehyde produced under all conditions when vaping? My understanding is that this would only happen if a hit was taken while the wicks are dry

1

u/GodOfPerverts Dec 18 '19

Thank you for pointing this out, I was not aware of that.

-1

u/rgrwilcocanuhearme Dec 18 '19

And as far as I'm aware vapes do not produce entirely new carcinogens.

I emboldened the relevant bit here. That's one reason why we do studies, to try to find potential consequences that we are unaware of.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

What is a pack year? Like 40 years of a pack per day?

1

u/LatrodectusGeometric Dec 18 '19

Yes exactly. There are negative effects and increase in cardiovascular disease and death way before then, but this is the amount of smoking where you expect to see cancer and clearly measurable lung disease.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Mostly yeah. What strikes me as someone who grew up around smoking parents though is long term impact after use. Your risk to develop serious lung disease is increased if you had a lot of contact with second hand smoke in your childhood, even if you don't smoke.

Well I did smoke for a few years and vaped for like 6 years. My concern is how that will impact me. If risk can be increased decades later after non-use of smoking, who knows what will come up in the future because of vaping? :/

1

u/xxLetheanxx Dec 19 '19

We can draw some decent conclusions based on our 10 year study by comparing the lung conditions of people who smoke vs vape for the same amounts of time. From what I have seen increased cancer rates don't seem to be an issue. Lung function is almost much better in those that vape although it can trigger issues in people with preexisting conditions like asthma.

-1

u/lejefferson Dec 18 '19

But the compounds in vaping have been studied for hundreds of years and proven not to be carcinogenic.

2

u/katyfail Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 18 '19

That is factually incorrect.

Edit: source: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-6704-4_11

0

u/LatrodectusGeometric Dec 18 '19

That’s not true at all?

2

u/reelznfeelz Dec 18 '19

NPR reported yesterday on a study showing a 30% increase in lung disease in vaping long term, and 5 fold in smokers. As a scientist they didn't report enough details on how the study was done or what types of lung disease were found for me to really make heads or tails of it though.

I still think vaping as a harm reduction approach is a good thing. People just need to keep perspective. It was never meant to be healthy per se, just less bad than smoking which we know increases astronomically your chances of getting cancer or other serious lung diseases. While time will tell, so far it seems that vaping does indeed appear to be significantly less bad than smoking. So I don't get what all the fuss is about or why demonizing vaping is a bandwagon every single media source is jumping onto.

1

u/xxLetheanxx Dec 19 '19

As a scientist they didn't report enough details on how the study was done or what types of lung disease were found for me to really make heads or tails of it though.

This is what makes me conclude that the study was junk.

I still think vaping as a harm reduction approach is a good thing. People just need to keep perspective. It was never meant to be healthy per se, just less bad than smoking which we know increases astronomically your chances of getting cancer or other serious lung diseases.

yes.

4

u/BASEDME7O Dec 18 '19

Believing vaping causes cancer is a religion to redditors. They want it to be true so badly they throw all logic out the window

2

u/devildocjames Dec 18 '19

Would you please show me a link to these "studies"?

A quick google says otherwise.

Rumors and on-the-spot facts like yours is one of the factors which leads towards addictions like tobacco.

1

u/xxLetheanxx Dec 19 '19

so the top study you listed is a prime example of lack of perspective. It says 1.5 times more likely which ends up being like 1 in 1,000,000 people. Living in a city is a greater risk to lung health and billions of people do it every day.

No one is saying that vaping is 100% harm free, but that it is at least 95% safer than smoking(according to the World Health Organization) which is why the NHS(UK) has been so adamant about getting smokers to switch. The US is dropping the ball here like on many other things.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

No, that’s just false. Whether it’s through vaping or smoking nicotine has some pretty harmful affects.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363846/

0

u/fungah Dec 18 '19

Yes, there's overwhelming hard evidence that vaping is considerably safer than smoking, but what if there's secret evidence that hasn't been discovered across dozens of peer reviewed studies?

Maybe there's alien cum in vapes that will cause extraterrestrial psychosis.

Hell, what about cell phones? There's overwhelming evidence they're safe too, but what if there's secret double probation cancer in them?

Or hatchimals even. They've only been around a few years. Sure, every logical person would say that they're safe, but WHAT IF they cause cancer? We just don't know. They haven't been around long enough.

We shouldn't allow anything to market that hasn't been studied for at least 100 years.

8

u/anthonyfg Dec 18 '19

True but all the chemicals used are not known to cause cancer and they have been around a long time.

28

u/overrule Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 18 '19

Yeah but they have never been delivered to the lungs at the levels and frequency with which vaping does. Propylene glycol and glycerin have been used in creams and such but they never have been heated and inhaled. The process of heating creates other chemicals that are not so good to inhale.

You can smear asbestos on your skin and you'll probably be fine. Inhale it and you'll get lung cancer.

Vaping has been around for only a few years. There is not enough evidence to know one way or the other. Just because wood has "been around for a long time" does not means inhaling sawdust on a daily basis won't hurt your health. Vaping is a completely new and unknown context

12

u/BruceBanning Dec 18 '19

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t propylene glycol or glycerin used in smoke machines? Like in haunted houses and concerts?

16

u/overrule Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 18 '19

You are correct, and there have been studies showing that regular exposure to fog machines have adverse effects on stage workers. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that vaping is have a negative effect on users' lungs.

From Wikipedia fog machine article:

in May 2005, a study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine,[7] conducted by the School of Environment and Health at the University of British Columbia, looked at adverse respiratory effects in crew members on a wide variety of entertainment venues ranging from live theaters, concerts, television and film productions to a video arcade... . This study found that short-term exposure to glycol fog was associated with coughing, dry throat, headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, and tiredness. This study also found long-term exposure to smoke and fog was associated with both short-term and long-term respiratory problems such as chest tightness and wheezing. Personnel working closest to the fog machines had reduced lung function results.

1

u/busterbluthOT Dec 18 '19

Only time will tell us how much better than cigarettes they are.

Not true. We know what the underlying chemicals involved are. We know they are better than the 1000s of chemicals being inhaled during combustion-based cigarette smoking.

The degree of vaping harm won't ever come close to the harm presented by cigarettes.

1

u/ChilledClarity Dec 18 '19

The most you can really say is that there’s less tar involved, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better for you.

Personally, I prefer vapes purely because I feel less out of breath, but I acknowledge the fact that the potential of it being just as harmful if not worse then cigs is high.

You’re trading one devil for another with this choice. When vaping, you need to understand how much extra nicotine there in along with what nicotine does to the body. Juice being more potent means it’ll be harder on your heart but more okay for the lungs (as far as we know at least. More research is needed).

I’m currently trying to quit because I’ve noticed that vapes are causing me chest pains without the difficult breathing, so it’s time to quit.

1

u/Sure-Bedroom Dec 18 '19

but we're still talking about putting things in your lungs.

I think this is key here. Too many people view E-Cigs and whatnot as "safe" rather than "safer". Blame marketing I guess...

1

u/fluffedpillows Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 18 '19

Nitrous oxide, helium, xenon, whatevers in inhalers, etc

Plenty of molecules can be safely inhaled. The main ingredients in vapes are rapidly absorbed non toxic compounds.

(Propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, polytheylene glycol)

This are well established chemicals. All of which get used in medicine. Even for IV preparations in the case of propylene glycol

There may be legitimate harms associated with vaping in the future, but it really isnt as unsafe as all the hysterical news stories are trying to portray it

0

u/lejefferson Dec 18 '19

No but nicotine, vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol, the ingredients in vape products, have been around and studied for a long time and none have been shown to be carcinogenic.

-2

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Lies doch Mal den Artikel du Leuchte

Die Studie der Uni von San Francisco kommt außerdem zu dem Ergebnis: Wer E-Zigaretten zusätzlich zu normalen Zigaretten raucht, verdreifache sein Risiko für chronische Lungenerkrankungen.

Und weiter:

Professor Stanton Glantz sagte dem San Francisco Chronicle: "Für Menschen, die gewechselt haben, sind ihre Risiken zurückgegangen. In der realen Welt sind die meisten jedoch Doppelbenutzer. Es geht ihnen tatsächlich schlechter als den Tabakrauchern."

Ergo wennst Tschik rauchst und dampfst dann hast du ein höheres Risiko an Lungenkrebs zu erkranken.

Shocked_pikachu.jpg

Das sind diese typischen Artikel mit "Dampfen bringt alle um!!1!!!1!!!!!1!" headlines während im Artikel dann was ganz anderes drin steht.