E-Cigarette Health Risks

If You Vape, You're Going To Want To Read This, ASAP

Whether you’re trying to quit cigarettes altogether or just want to have a mid-dinner nicotine fix without being banished to the alley behind the restaurant, you’ve probably considered — or even vaped — an electronic cigarette.

But a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine is bringing into question whether e-cigs are really any safer (or should we say less dangerous?) than traditional cigarettes.

E-cigs, which work by heating a nicotine-containing liquid into an inhalable vapor, are generally billed as safer alternatives to regular cigarettes. Some studies — including those from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute — found that, while e-cigarette vapors contain toxic substances, the levels are lower than those in cigarette smoke. Still, e-cigarettes are still a pretty new contraption, meaning that the research on them is limited at best.

What’s more, little research has examined the effects of using high- rather than low-voltage e-cigs. Some electronic cigarettes allow vapers to raise the voltage. The higher the voltage, the bigger the nicotine buzz.

So researchers from Portland State University (who suspect that many vapers are kicking it to the highest setting) examined the vapor released from adjustable voltage vaporizers when used at different settings. As the researchers increased the voltage from 3.3 volts all the way up to 5.0 volts, they found that the e-cigarettes began producing formaldehyde-containing compounds called hemiacetals.

Yep, formaldehyde is no longer just a problem for traditional tobacco companies. In the study, when researchers used e-cigs at high voltages, they produced between five and 15 times more formaldehyde than what’s typically contained in cigarette smoke.

“It took just three milligrams of e-cigarette liquid vaporized at a high voltage to produce as much formaldehyde as a whole pack of regular cigarettes,” says Christopher Asandra, M.D., founder and chief medical officer of NuMale Medical Centers. “The amount of formaldehyde generated in the scenarios the researchers used is pretty alarming.”

The researchers concluded that smoking high-voltage e-cigarettes is linked with a one in 200 lifetime risk of developing formaldehyde-related cancer. That’s five times higher than the risk associated with smoking cigarettes. (Meanwhile, the researchers determined that vaping at low voltages does not raise the risk of formaldehyde-related cancer.)

However, those numbers are estimates, as e-cigarettes produce formaldehyde in droplet form and cigarettes produce formaldehyde as a gas. Formaldehyde inhaled as a gas is known to increase the risk of leukemia, as well as nasopharyngeal cancer, a type of cancer that strikes the upper part of the throat behind the nose.

However, zero studies have investigated how formaldehyde-containing hemiacetals, in droplet form, affect cancer risk. “We don’t know exactly where the formaldehyde contained in hemiacetals gets deposited in the body, or whether it is as toxic as inhaled formaldehyde gas,” Asandra says.

Likewise, research hasn’t yet pinpointed if e-cigarettes contribute to other health issues — including cardiovascular disease and erectile dysfunction — that are associated with smoking. “We won’t know fully for at least a decade when the effects begin to appear in chronic users.”

However, that’s doesn’t mean you should turn yourself into a lab rat.

“We know that e-cigarettes produce a form of formaldehyde. We know that formaldehyde in another form is a leading cause of cancer in cigarette smokers,” Asandra says. “The best advice I can give people is to avoid smoking, whether electronic or analog.”