Clinical trial with ecigs

[theherkman]

www. ucanquit2 .org/media/dod/pdf/chest_11_2443_full.pdf
[rebuild broken link]

Source: American College of Chest Physicians

Results: Using an e-cigarette for 5 minutes was found to lead to an immediate decrease in exhaled FeNO within the experimental group by 2.14ppb, (p=0.005) while not in the control group (p=0.859). Total impedance (Z5Hz) in the experimental group was found to also increase by 0.033kPa/(L/s) (p<0.001) while flow resistance at R5Hz, R10Hz and R20Hz also statistically increased.). Regression analyses controlling for baseline measurements indicated statistically significant decrease in FeNO and an increase in impedance by 0.04kPa/(L/s), (p=0.003), resistance at R5Hz by 0.04kPa/(L/s), (p=0.003),at R10Hz by 0.034kPa/(L/s), (p=0.008), at R20Hz by 0.043kPa/(L/s), (p=0.007), and overall peripheral airway resistance (beta: 0.042 kPa/(L/s), (p=0.024), after using an e-cigarette.

Thoughts on this? Unknown variables that weren't considered in this study?

 

[octaner]

anything is better then smoking, vaping might not be as good at breathing air but..... you pick

 

[zoiDman]

It seems that the Study’s results center around how much Exhaled Nitric Oxide was detected.

Unfortunately, I little knowledge in how to interpret the results.

Exhaled nitric oxide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[theherkman]

Bump for any more opinions.

 

[jazon1]

great to see some people doing actual tests i see a few things that could have been done better.

the first is the ecigs you used are probably only used by maybe 1% of ecig users at most those are like the ones we find as gas stations and are some of the nastiest ones you could get and are known to use some nasty flavoring to try to get the "cigarette" flavor the majority of us use food grade flavorings which im sure those probably dont.

i think a better test would have been to test 100%pg and a 100%vg separately with just nicotine and no flavoring.
that way it would rule out contamination from the flavoring used in those things, you have to consider that there are literally 1000s of things used to flavor e-cigs and are usually 20% or more of the juices contents,

the way you ran the test you wont know if it was the flavoring( that most ecigs will not be using) or the pg/nic that were in those e-cigs that were giving you the results you got and there for would not be accurate results for 99.9% of e-cigs.

i think the hard part for you guys will be attaining results from all the flavoring that are out there so for now you should considerate on just the effects of pg/vg with nic the tests you ran were on flavored PG e-liquid alot of people vapor 100% VG but the majority of people use a bland of pg/vg

so you might want to try a trial of 100%VG,,,,100%pg and a 50/50 all with nic to get a better understanding of there effects

also should consider trying the tests on people who have been using e-cigs for awhile, most e-cig users wont take more then a hit or two in a 5 minute window were as a smoker who just got to try an ecig might hit it considerably harder and more often then a normal e-cig user.

 

[skydvejam]

Another issue I see here is a apples to steak approach, non smokers used, lets do this test as advised above, heck even have experienced E-cig users that use the device as it is supposed to be used. Reminds me of the old "lights" trick with analog company's, sure the machines smoked them as they wanted them to, but people did not, so the real world results are different.
I know no one who decided to pick up E-cigs unless they were already a smoker, so lets see what is worse, E-cigs or analogs. I am truly interested in this part of the research, I feel better, but then that is not always the best thing to go off of.

 

[Byten]

After reviewing the publication, I fail to see what this concludes other than the e-cigarettes used were correlated to decreases in exhaled nitric oxide, which isn't really a concrete indication of anything. The entire study is invalid for purposes of evaluating e-cigs in light of e-cigs being marketed and intended to be used by smokers. "30 healthy non smokers (ages 19-56, 14 male) participated in this laboratory based experimental vs. control group study."

I recommend that anyone with the time or resources look into who did this study and who funded it. Bet you find something interesting.

 

[skydvejam]

This project was partially supported by internal funds of the Hellenic Cancer Society, Greece just go to the source, and then funding links.
Also by
From the Center for Global Tobacco Control(Drs Vardavas, Connolly, and Behrakis), Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA; the Smoking and Lung Cancer Research Center (Drs Vardavas, Anagnostopoulos, Kougias, Evangelopoulou, and Behrakis), Hellenic Cancer Society, Athens, Greece; and the Laboratory of Respiratory Physiology (Drs Anagnostopoulos, Kougias, and Behrakis), Department of Medicine, University of Athens, Greece.

After reviewing the publication, I fail to see what this concludes other than the e-cigarettes used were correlated to decreases in exhaled nitric oxide, which isn't really a concrete indication of anything. The entire study is invalid for purposes of evaluating e-cigs in light of e-cigs being marketed and intended to be used by smokers. "30 healthy non smokers (ages 19-56, 14 male) participated in this laboratory based experimental vs. control group study."

I recommend that anyone with the time or resources look into who did this study and who funded it. Bet you find something interesting.

 

[Vap_ingBilly]

I just had a quick read thru this study. I have about 25 years scientific training/experience but not in cardiopulmonary medicine.

IMO: the study was relatively well designed and reported but suffered from a number of weaknesses, some of which are reported in the paper as appropriate. One problem was the failure to effectively blind (i.e. experimental group inhaled vapor and control inhaled nothing), the small and unequal sample sizes 30 Vs 10 and the fact that the primary effect (differences in exhaled nitric oxide) was not normally distributed and so ability to generalise the statistical results to the population generally is very limited.

While its good to see research starting in this area, all this study might really indicate is that if you get a bunch of non-smokers to inhale vapor for 5 mins they will exhibit a physiological reaction that causes a minor narrowing of the peripheral airways. I'm not an expert in respiratory medicine but to me that seems like a natural protective reaction that would have been expected, particularly in non-smokers.

The authors are 'generally' careful not to over interpret their results and note that these effects are subclinical. Interesting that the eliquid tested did not contain any of the toxins that the infamous FDA 'analysis' reported (eg diethylene glycol etc).

 

[Jeff M]

Study: 30 people were assigned to run up a flight of stairs. 30 were assigned to remain sedentary. The 30 who ran up the stairs exhibited a faster heart rate and more labored breathing. Conclusion: Running up a flight of stairs can be bad for you.

Such studies as described in the OP peak curiosity, but are meaningless.

 

[daPorkchop]

Study: 30 people were assigned to run up a flight of stairs. 30 were assigned to remain sedentary. The 30 who ran up the stairs exhibited a faster heart rate and more labored breathing. Conclusion: Running up a flight of stairs can be bad for you.

Such studies as described in the OP peak curiosity, but are meaningless.

Agree with this. The control group should have been fake inhaling through a tube of the same size imo. Or just huffing and puffing for 5mins.

Also, according to wikipedia (i know...great source)

Patients with asthma have higher eNO levels than other people

 

[rolygate]

This study was funded by pharma in order to get negative results. The study itself contains numerous errors and omissions that an experienced adviser would have been able to correct, but the purpose of the study was probably not to show how safe ecigs are, but to produce arguments why they may not be.

The researchers were used but were probably not aware of that. Their conclusions are valid, for the testing they did, and for the limitations of the trial.

The true value of all such studies to the funders is not what they contain, but instead what can be concocted in a hyped-up and loaded press release to say that the trial found. That function was fully utilised for this trial, which was followed by a series of hysterical PRs and media articles with stories such as, "E-cigarettes proven to harm the lungs immediately" and so forth. So the trial provided full value for money for the funders.

If you want to know the real story about bronchoprovocation (basically, what the PRs said the trial found negative evidence for) then ask Prof R Polosa, a pulmonologist, asthma authority, and internationally recognised leader in the field of clinical bronchoprovocation - basically an expert on what this bent study was trying to spin. He has carried out several clinical trials on ecigs and just laughs at stuff like this.

You can produce any result you like from a clinical trial, and even weight it before you start with at least 5 different methods to set things up to produce the results you want so that the way you fixed it doesn't even appear in the methodology report you have to give.

The list of things that this trial either deliberately or accidentally got wrong is fairly extensive. Just bad luck, maybe. Or maybe not.

By the way, we try not to give links to junk science out of ECF, because it gives them unwarranted googlejuice. If it looks bad for ecigs then there is a 99% chance that someone set things up to look that way deliberately; there just isn't enough negative evidence to present truthfully. Please break dodgy links, members can easily rebuild them if required. Just put gaps in like this:
www .example .com/page.html

Thanks.