Do you worry? Long term effects? "Results"

TESTS FOR THE CHRONIC TOXICITY OF PROPYLEXE GLYCOL AND TRIETHYLENE GLYCOL ON MONKEYS AND RATS BY VAPOR INHALATION AND ORAL ADMINISTRATION
O. H. ROBERTSON, CLAYTON G. LOOSLI, THEODORE T. PUCK, HENRY WISE, HENRY M. LEMON and WILLIAM LESTER, JR.
+ Author Affiliations

From the Department of Medicine, the Douglas Smith Foundation for Medical Research and the Bartlett Memorial Fund of the University of Chicago and the Commission on Air-Borne Infections, U. S. Army Epidemiological Board
Abstract

With a view to determining the safety of employing the vapors of propylene glycol and triethylene glycol in atmospheres inhabited by human beings, monkeys and rats were exposed continuously to high concentrations of these vapors for periods of 12 to 18 months. Equal numbers of control animals were maintained under physically similar conditions. Long term tests of the effects on ingesting triethylene glycol were also carried out. The doses administered represented 50 to 700 times the amount of glycol the animal could absorb by breathing air saturated with the glycol.

Comparative observations on the growth rates, blood counts, urine examinations, kidney function tests, fertility and general condition of the test and control groups, exhibited no essential differences between them with the exception that the rats in the glycol atmospheres exhibited consistently higher weight gains. Some drying of the skin of the monkeys' faces occurred after several months continuous exposure to a heavy fog of triethylene glycol. However, when the vapor concentration was maintained just below saturation by means of the glycostat this effect did not occur.

Examination at autopsy likewise failed to reveal any differences between the animals kept in glycolized air and those living in the ordinary room atmosphere. Extensive histological study of the lungs was made to ascertain whether the glycol had produced any generalized or local irritation. None was found. The kidneys, liver, spleen and bone marrow also were normal.

The results of these experiments in conjunction with the absence of any observed ill effects in patients exposed to both triethylene glycol and propylene glycol vapors for months at a time, provide assurance that air containing these vapors in amounts up to the saturation point is completely harmless.

Footnotes

Received June 4, 1947.

Nicotine: Long-term effects of inhaled nicotine. [Life Sci. 1996] - PubMed - NCBI

Long-term effects of inhaled nicotine.
Waldum HL1, Nilsen OG, Nilsen T, Rørvik H, Syversen V, Sanvik AK, Haugen OA, Torp SH, Brenna E.
Author information
Abstract
tobacco smoking has been reported to be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, particularly of the lungs. In spite of extensive research on the health effects of tobacco smoking, the substances in tobacco smoke exerting these negative health effects are not completely known. Nicotine is the substance giving the subjective pleasure of smoking as well as inducing addiction. For the first time we report the effect on the rat of long-term (two years) inhalation of nicotine. The rats breathed in a chamber with nicotine at a concentration giving twice the plasma concentration found in heavy smokers. Nicotine was given for 20 h a day, five days a week during a two-year period. We could not find any increase in mortality, in atherosclerosis or frequency of tumors in these rats compared with controls. Particularly, there was no microscopic or macroscopic lung tumors nor any increase in pulmonary neuroendocrine cells. Throughout the study, however, the body weight of the nicotine exposed rats was reduced as compared with controls. In conclusion, our study does not indicate any harmful effect of nicotine when given in its pure form by inhalation.

PMID: 8614291 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]