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Chemical flavored E-cigarettes irridiates lungs

E-cigarettes under heavyfire, users who smoke cherry-flavored vapors are inhaling a chemical called Benzaldehyde, which can irritate their airways. High levels of the respiratory irritant benzaldehyde were detected in the vapour from most of the flavoured nicotine products, with the highest concentrations in vapour from cherry-flavoured products.

Benzaldehyde is most dangerous chemical

However, the exposure limit to this chemical is of about 8 hours. Therefore, it would take you several years of vaping to reach this limit. Scientists believe e-cigarettes are still a lot healthier than traditional tobacco ones, which can expose you to more than 7,000 chemicals, 6 of which are known to be carcinogens.

The concentrations of the chemical Benzaldehyde were 43 times higher in cherry-flavoured products than in other flavours,

Basically, the research team tried to determine the amount of Benzaldehyde contained by flavored e-cigarettes, analyzing and comparing between 140 different flavors. This chemical compound has been proven to not have any adverse effects when applied on one’s skin or ingested, but that changes when inhaling, irritating the subject’s airways.

Benzaldehyde is commonly used in natural food flavorings.

Out of all the samples analyzed in the study, 101 of them were found to contain amounts of Benzaldehyde. What the study and some articles fail to mention is that even if these amounts are large, the required quantity of Benzaldehyde to actually cause serious problems to one’s airways is 1000 larger than the one found in e-cigs.

However, e-cigarette industry group Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association said in a statement that these findings prove e-cigarettes remain a better alternative to regular and traditional tobacco cigarettes. “Let’s not lose sight that vaping presents substantially less risk than combustion cigarettes, which expose smokers to over 7,000 chemicals including more than 60 known or suspected carcinogens,” the group’s statement said.

“This research shows that even with cherry e-cigs, it would take three years of vaping to reach the 8-hour work shift permissible occupational exposure limit,” they added.

Meanwhile, Dr. Norman Edelman, a senior scientific advisor for the American Lung Association, noted that Goniewicz and colleagues’ study puts forth the need for proper regulation of e-cigarettes.

“To me, it’s another piece of evidence that we don’t know what’s in those things,” Edelman explained, as per WebMD. “It’s terribly important that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration use its power to regulate them. The first thing they can do is find out what is in them,” he advised.

E-cigarettes still the safer alternative to smoking traditional tobacco products?

While it appears to be safe when ingested or applied on the skin, it has been shown to cause airway irritation in animals and humans, and may have different effects when heated and inhaled, as when used in vaping. Researchers measured benzaldehyde levels for 145 different flavoured nicotine products using an automatic smoking simulator and calculated daily exposure to users from 163 e-cigarette puffs.

Their analysis detected benzaldehyde in the vapour from 108 (74%) of the flavoured products studied, and found concentrations of the chemical that were 43 times higher in cherry-flavoured products than in other flavours.

It is rather interesting to see how studies and media have switched from blaming tobacco smoking for basically every disease out there, a trend noticeable a couple of months ago, to raising fears in regards to e-cigs. This comes as a surprise if one would take into account the proven fact that e-cigs are much more safe in comparison to tobacco smoking.

But one has to keep in mind that even if e-cigarettes are healthier than traditional methods of smoking, this does not mean that one should not, at least, try to quit completely. Most people who opt to make the switch to e-cigs are doing it because they wish to quit, even if several correlation studies have shown that often times, people usually keep smoking tobacco in-between smoking e-cigarettes.

Like with all studies of this kind, especially if you take into account the rather massive war against e-cigs currently happening in the US, every finding has to be taken with a pinch of salt. It’s still completely up to you if you want to switch to e-cigs or not.

Keeping in mind that e-cigarettes face criticisms once again, it will be interesting to see what other studies will show in regards to e-cigs’ effects on health. What will be even more intriguing will be what the media and research parties will elect as their new target in the near future, once e-cigarette smoking will suffer the same fate as normal tobacco smoking.

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