Low Resistance, High Voltage and Acrolein - a vaper's experience

[Rusty]

Ay Up Everyone,

I have just seen a post on a UK Forum from a long time vaper called Maz and his experience over the past few weeks. I hope it will be of help,,,,,

Hi Guys

Been a good while since I've been on here, took a break from most forums as I was being well, a bit of an argumentative .... really. Not how I want to behave.. Anyway, I posted this on LF and Rusty, bless his little cotton socks thought it should be posted everywhere I don't think it's that important but anyways, here is the post as ripped from LF..


After ages of vaping 6v and low resistance atomisers, how lucky am I? I finally got some Acrolein to review!

This is going to be long and probably fairly dry, but maybe worth a read to some. It’s taken ages of reading, research and biology cramming to find the answer to the problem I was having, I am going to take you the route, I’ll just omit the months it’s taken to reach the conclusion.

As some of you that were unfortunate enough to have had to read some of my posts before I took a little break from the forum will probably know, I like a drink now and again. I have since learned that internet forums you actually like posting on are not good places to visit once you have a ‘wobble on’ I am not a problem drinker, just like to have a pint or two once or twice a week anyway I digress..

Periodically at first I was having the odd night when alcohol wasn’t having its intended effect, instead of the, well, pissed effect I was getting flushed in the face and very hot in the body. My face would go red with a burning, prickly sensation and I would eventually get so hot I’d have to strip off my top and stand outside for a while. Even more annoying than this to me at the time was that I had precisely zero of the pleasant effects I was expecting from the alcohol I drank, just the annoying flushing. For months I put up with this as it was only occasional but steadily it got worse until it was every single time I drank alcohol, and I could get this effect after a single pint.

CLEARLY UNACCEPTABLE! Cue lots of internet hours....

First I searched “alcohol flushing” and ended up on sites about “Asian flush” which is a similar (if not identical) effect experienced by roughly 50% of Asians (real, nice Asians, not what the UK press euphemistically call “Asians” after there’s been trouble). On further research it appears around 50% of the worlds Asian population have a mutated gene that interferes with their body’s ability to effectively process alcohol, this causes flushing in the face, temperature rise, pressure headaches etc. It appears some of our Asian friends have a mutated ALDH1 gene, this is one of the genes that enables the body to process alcohol. When we drink alcohol we turn it (like anything else we ingest) into something else, we metabolise alcohol into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is the major metabolite of alcohol, it just so happens that acetaldehyde is WAAAY more toxic than alcohol, in fact it’s a carcinogen (mainly affecting the oesophagus, apparently). Normally in everyone apart from the unfortunate +/-50% of the Asian population acetaldehyde is then dispatched effectively by acetaldehyde dehydrogenase 1, protecting us when we drink alcohol and basically making us pissed and happy rather than hot, sober, headachey, flushed and pissed right off.

Ok, so quite obviously I hadn’t turned Asian without knowing about it, but why do I have the bloody annoying symptoms of ALDH1 inefficiency when I haven’t before? Obviously my genetic make-up cannot have changed.. Cue even more internet hours, please bear in mind I am no biologist and some of this .... was quite hard to grasp. Or even get to in the first place as I had no idea where to go for the info or what to link it to, all new to Maz.

Seems there are lots of ‘cures’ within the Asian community for this problem, they vary from dodgy scams I didn’t fall for to certain antacids, not eating for 24 hours before a drink, niacin supplements etc. I researched all of them quite heavily, Niacin was the clear winner in my book as a possible for a test (on me obviously, I don’t have too many ALDH1 deficient monkeys to hand). Seems ALDH1 is quite dependant on B vitamins, not just Niacin but pretty much all of them. I loaded on B’s then attempted to glug my way through half a bottle of Jack Daniels, purely for research purposes you understand..

Quarter of the way in, red hot..... ARRR....INGGHHHH! Many MORE INTERNET HOURS later....

I was getting quite despondent by this point, like most I do enjoy a night down the local with my mates and wasn’t intending on being the J2O drinker in the group!

A few weeks after this I started noticing the flushing in a much milder form even when I wasn’t drinking, so being the only possible cause I started looking to my (moderately heavy) vaping, this seems quite obvious in retrospect but didn’t really enter into my thinking earlier. Recently I have been doing all of my vaping at Low Resistance, I had an RN4075 and a standard 510 atty kicking around both unused and a big stock of LR901 and LR510 attys. I also have juice based on PG and VG, all my own menthol was made with 52mg PG diluted with VG and then menthol crystals added.

VG (and PG but to a lesser extent) create acrolein when heated to above 280 degrees, according to LF shop their LR atty coil temperatures can reach 300 degrees, also interestingly, acrolein is a basic aldehyde. The penny makes a clanging sound as it drops from a great height, hitting me square on the head..

It turns out that the drinkers friend, acetaldehyde dehydrogenase 1 or ALDH1 also assists in the breakdown and neutralisation of other aldehydes including acrolein! Too much acrolein and you will inhibit/deplete your ALDH1 which will create all the symptoms I was having when drinking alcohol! I tested the theory by vaping for two days with a standard atty and cutting down my juice consumption then went up to the shop, bought half a bottle of Jack and some coke and settled down after the nipper went to bed for some research! I necked a double quite quickly, followed by another and then slowed down to sipping whilst I plugged in some headphones and trawled youtube for music..

A couple of hours later found Maz with a big stupid grin on his face, rocking to some Hendrix - SUCCESS! ;D

Since then I have vaped exclusively at standard temperatures and had a couple of nights on the sauce, actively trying to drink in a pattern that would trigger the flush response, with absolutely no success at all - so I know I’m right here. You can produce acrolein with VG in an LR atty, that much in my experience is certain. However I am a fairly heavy vaper, I was getting through 4-5ml a day and drawing on the LR atty slowly to increase throat hit, this is also certain to have impacted on the amount of acrolein that was produced. I am not posting this up to say LR vaping is bad, or to panic-monger about acrolein, it may well be that my own physiology coupled with my vaping habits caused most of the issue I was having. I am posting this in case anyone else is having a similar issue, to let them know what is the cause and how easily it can be solved.

I also found that there is nothing you can do to PEG-400 (polyethylene glycol) to make it decompose into acrolein, heating PEG to destruction creates carbons dioxide and monoxide though, however I believe these to be safer than acrolein. That’s settled then, I am going to keep a few LR attys in stock for when I need a bit extra oomph, but will be using only PEG juices for the purpose. PG and VG will be kept for standard atty use in future.

© Maz Biotech 2010

Please discuss

[Bahnzo]

The first thing I think is....how the hell is this guy vaping at 6v with a LR atty?

[Rusty]

He isn't Bahnzo!!

[Drozd]

Ay Up Everyone,

I have just seen a post on a UK Forum from a long time vaper called Maz and his experience over the past few weeks. I hope it will be of help,,,,,


Please discuss

first thing I think is that it's totally bad science.... acrolein....VG starts to break down into acrolein at 280 CELCIUS...... the temperature on a dry 1.5Ω atty at a true 3.7V device at 15 seconds is 285 FARENHEIT on the dry coil...shortly after that you're looking at destroying the atty....atties that are kept wet run at a lower temperature...a stock joye 510 runs at about 180 FARENHEIT dry, directly on the coil at cutoff...

in other words there's no way that the atty is getting hot enough to produce acrolein in any measureable amount....
perhaps he should try to refrain from science while hitting the sauce

[voltaire]

At the risk of touching off a debate just as "heated" and long running as the acrolein debate, (I've had my fill of that in previous threads) I think his choice as a heavy vaper to switch to all PEG could be misguided and possibly ill-advised. I know there are some suppliers that use PEG, (seems more common in Europe) but the jury is still out on it's safety relative to PG and VG. I remember a thread here where an esteemed member who's much more qualified than I am expressed some apprehension to vaping PEG due to the fact that it's a polymer and a much larger molecule than PG or VG. Let me see if I can find it...

ETA:
Ok I found it. It's admittedly a bit thin, but it's enough to discourage me from vaping PEG for now, specially since it doesn't seem to have any significant benefit over PG.
http://forum.e-cigarette-forum.com/f...tml#post717396 (see posts #15 & #17 by Kurt and Kinabiloo, two well-respected and qualified members)

Further related reading I ran across in my search:

on PEG:
http://forum.e-cigarette-forum.com/f...ead-pg-vg.html

on Acrolein:
http://forum.e-cigarette-forum.com/f...g-vg-read.html

P.S. New and improved search capability ROCKS! GO ALEX!!!

[juicefreak]

thx for the post Rusty. I've had some of that flushing and it's no fun. I emailed the link to Issac (iken) because he's ended up in the hospital several x this year from similar symptoms.

not going to debate the atty temps. crap happens. until then we can speculate all we want. switching to regular atties helped Maz and he shared that. Anything that helps us vapers w/o attacking ppl's experiences is a good thing.

[Drozd]

thx for the post Rusty. I've had some of that flushing and it's no fun. I emailed the link to Issac (iken) because he's ended up in the hospital several x this year from similar symptoms.

not going to debate the atty temps. crap happens. until then we can speculate all we want. switching to regular atties helped Maz and he shared that. Anything that helps us vapers w/o attacking ppl's experiences is a good thing.

I look at it as more of a people really need to be aware and watch the Celcius versus Farenheit difference....it's a majorly comon error in the acrolein discussion vs atty temps as well as the juice storage discussion....same as the common mistake of people testing battery voltages unloaded versus appropriately loaded with a testing rig.....
for any consistency in moving forward in this industry we gotta watch common mistakes in bad science contributing to results we post...also how reliable is a source that admits to being on the sauce while experimenting

[juicefreak]

absolutely true drodz. calculations run rampant on here sometimes with misinfo.

what's weird is the experience he had related to VG. i'm wondering if some of the severe reactions are a build up of VG in the body over time, where one more dose sends it over the edge? something is going on with these experiences.

does that make all VG unsafe? i don't think so. too much has not been tested though, for us to come to conclusions based on lack of incidences. one thing that could be a factor is different flavorings and how they react over time mixed with other ecig ingredients. that's about the only other factor involved.

i'm trying to cut back to minimal flavorings for that reason. we're all guinea pigs.

[Drozd]

oh I don't use VG if I can help it at all....yeah things are for the most part unproven but there's way more to support the use of PG than VG...too much of VG makes me ill to top that off...but you got the people that will think that because it's called VG and that the V stands for vegetable that it's somehow better or more natural...where when in all honesty it can come from several different sources either animal or plant (can also be made with petrochemicals but that's more costly) ....it's all glycerine at the end when it hits USP grade...

on acrolein production....it usually requres a catalyst to produce in any measureable volumes....but erring on the side of caution *IF* it can be produced by simply heating that break down doesn't occur until 280 C..... and our atties just dont get that hot...

that fact has been argued round and round on threads arguing whether or not it's dangerous to vape around oxygen tanks or while fueling your car.... the initial tests by the FDA indicate the operating range of a PV to be 40-65 C.....but those were njoy and SE.... so to satisfy my own curiosity (and since I have a temperature probe for my DMM... using both a regular 510 atty and a 1.5Ω LR510 atty and both an ego battery and then a 3.7V mod and then the 6V mod in any configuration and the temp probe directly on the dry coil.... I couldnt even approach that temp where acrolein would be a concern....in any case it was still well at least 200 degrees away

[LowThudd]

The REAL question is, who told the Brits they could invent this celcius "Thing" and mess w/ all our rational measurements. LMAO

*as he hits his sauce*