Tetramethylpyrazine.

[helmar]

I was reading some articles that were saying ecigs were dangerous. They brought forth the same old bull.... argument about eg and the fda report and all that but there was some mention that I had not seen before about a chemical called tetramethylpyrazine and that it caused brain damage or bleeding.

I am sorry if this has been posted before but I have truly been searching for this everywhere. Can't find anything about it through the search function here on the forum and when I google it, all I can find is that it is apparantly a old chinese folk medicine and that research shows it has beneficial effects on the spines of guinie pigs and rabbits or something like that. No matter how hard I look I can't find anything about it being dangerous to humans.

You guys know anything about this chemical and wether it could be dangerous? I checked out the vendor site where I buy my eliquid and they seem to use it for many flavourings, so it is a little worrying.

Anyway hope I'm not scaring anyone.

 

[bmwjen]

It's two different words tetramethyl pyrazine.
It's naturally occurring in the following things that we use on a daily basis:
beef roasted beef
cheese cheddar cheese
cocoa products
GRIN Picture
coffee
dairy products
egg boiled egg
filbert
galbanum
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guava
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macadamia nut
GRIN Picture
meat
peanut
rum
shrimp
soy products
tea green tea
whiskey

Here's a link to my source 2,3,5,6-tetramethyl pyrazine 1124-11-4

The only nicjuice that I have that lists ingredients is from Halo, & this chemical is not listed. Maybe because my halo juice isn't nutty/vanilla or cocoa flavored.

 

[helmar]

Thanks for the answer. I looked through the link you sent me and while it was informative I can't see it saying if the chemical is safe or not? Perhaps it does say so but then I obviously don't know how to read that from what I see.

Can anyone say if this chemical is safe or not?

 

[SuziesMom]

It's a flavoring chemical. You've probably consumed a hundred times and never known it.

 

[36tinybells]

You know, it's funny how much we inhaled formaldehyde and a bunch of other stuff for years, and then we get all researchy on e-cigs! Not saying it's wrong, just that we were so hooked on tobacco we could ignore the awful stuff we inhaled and then, bam, we become concious that we could be putting something bad in our bodies!
The one thing I am certain of is we are doing far less damage to our bodies, if we are doing any.

 

[pumasforpets]

In terms of oral toxicity, the LD50 (the dosage at which 50% of lab animals died) of that particular chemical in rats is 1910mg/Kg. That's a ridiculously high dose. It's about the same as acetaminophen (tylenol). The substance can be detected by human senses at 1ppm (part per million) and is used in baked goods at a recommended concentration of 5ppm. 5ppm is approximately equal to 5mg/kg.

There's a famous quote by Paracelsus about toxicity: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."

"That is to say, substances considered toxic are harmless in small doses, and conversely an ordinarily harmless substance can be deadly if over-consumed." - Wikipedia

Drinking water can kill you if you drink too much.

 

[mwa102464]

It's not the 1st time that someone has written a bogus article about e-cigs and I'm sure it wont be the last, we still have a huge fight in front of us and we need to get as much information as we can and more studies done to fight the battle because it's gonna be a tough one that's for sure, believe me the FDA and out great Gov't ( not ) is probably writing a new Bill as we speak and gonna try to get it passed so big tobacco and big pharma can have there way soon enough, so tighten your belt up it's gonna be a battle for sure !

 

[WinNuke95]

In terms of oral toxicity, the LD50 (the dosage at which 50% of lab animals died) of that particular chemical in rats is 1910mg/Kg. That's a ridiculously high dose. It's about the same as acetaminophen (tylenol). The substance can be detected by human senses at 1ppm (part per million) and is used in baked goods at a recommended concentration of 5ppm. 5ppm is approximately equal to 5mg/kg.

There's a famous quote by Paracelsus about toxicity: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."

"That is to say, substances considered toxic are harmless in small doses, and conversely an ordinarily harmless substance can be deadly if over-consumed." - Wikipedia

Drinking water can kill you if you drink too much.

This info here about the LD50 is important. However I believe LD50 is best for figuring immediate poisoning, which doesn't unfortunately tell us about long term effects. Take salt for example: to be poisoned by it would be quite a feat but heart disease is the leading cause of death--which salt plays a role in.

This builds also support to the notion of picking your poison. Do you drink? Eat fast food or fried foods? Eat a lot of red meat? Speed on the highway? No one lives forever and if its not this its that.

 

[elfstone]

I don't know what to say. A brief scan of the PubMed results for this: tetramethylpyrazine - PubMed - NCBI seems to indicate it's a potentially protective substance for blood vessel lining and for brain cells at least. Unsure what to make of this - if I have a little time I'll research in more depth.

 

[Vocalek]

This info here about the LD50 is important. However I believe LD50 is best for figuring immediate poisoning, which doesn't unfortunately tell us about long term effects. Take salt for example: to be poisoned by it would be quite a feat but heart disease is the leading cause of death--which salt plays a role in.

This builds also support to the notion of picking your poison. Do you drink? Eat fast food or fried foods? Eat a lot of red meat? Speed on the highway? No one lives forever and if its not this its that.

The big key to long-term effects is the clearance rate: How fast is the substance eliminated from the body? Some substances, such as arsenic are stored in the body and accumulate. Thus small regular doses can eventually kill you.

The one chemical that the FDA had a fit over, diethylene glycol (DEG), was found in such a tiny amount in one cartridge (i.e. 0.01 g) that it would take drinking the contents of several thousand cartridges in a single day to reach the dose that would kill you (the lethal dose is between 1.0 and 1.63 g/kg of body weight.) NOTE: If your liquid contains nicotine, you'll be killed by drinking that much liquid long before the DEG has a chance to do anything to you. Luckily, we don't drink the liquid, we vaporize it. And the good news is that no DEG has been detected in the vapor.

Even if you did drink, let's say, an entire liter of PG laced with 1% DEG daily, since DEG clears the body within 24 hours, yesterday's dose would be long gone before today's dose comes in.

Why Do They Put Propylene Glycol in My Drinks? - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com