Eissenberg's study was testing how well c-Cig's delivered nicotine to their users. For those of you that haven't read it, here are the bullet points of it, summarized/paraphrased by me.
Now, as you can see from the first bullet point, the study concluded that e-cigs just aren't effective at getting nicotine in the blood stream of the user.
Now, the title of this thread is that the study may have been correct...sort of. What I mean is that the study definitely shows that the users had no nicotine in their systems...but it doesn't show that e-cigs aren't capable of delivering it.
I believe there is a case of confusing correlation and causation here.
Imagine that there was a study done on caffeine (for the sake of simplicity I'll leave out the use of a control group in my example). 10 Caucasians and 10 African-Americans were recruited for the study. The Caucasians were instructed to drink 3 8oz cups of caffeinated coffee with a 10 minute gap between cups. The African-Americans were to do the same. Then, 2 of the Caucasians suffered heart attacks but none of the African-Americans did.
Does that mean that Caucasians are more likely than African-Americans to suffer heart attacks due to the use of caffeine? Maybe...maybe not. Just because a certain event is correlated to an outcome, doesn't mean it is the cause of the outcome.
As it turns out, the study ended up showing that the two Caucasians that suffered heart attacks had pre-existing conditions that made them susceptible to heart attacks to begin with (for examples sake).
My thought is that it isn't that the e-cig and how it works (by vaporizing a nicotine solution) that isn't effective at delivering nicotine, but rather the solution not having a high enough concentration of nicotine in it.
I just performed a rather unscientific experiment. I say unscientific because you're about to see the use of the words "about", "roughly" and "close to". However, I think it is a good enough example to demonstrate my point.
I measured how many "drops" (from an eyedropper marked off with 0.25ml markings) were in 0.25ml of e-juice. Obviously the size of my "drop" might be different from the size of somebody else's "drop"...but you get the idea. I got 10 drops per 0.25ml of fluid.
I put a brand new atomizer (never used) on my battery, and put 1 drop of fluid on the wick.
I found that 1 drop yielded me 4 good "puffs" before I needed another "drop". Again, "puff" is a pretty subjective term, but you should get the idea.
That means I would need 2 and a half "drops" to get 10 puffs (as was done in the Eissenberg study).
So, here is some math:
10 (drops per 0.25ml) X 4 (number of 0.25ml increments in 1ml) = 40 drops per ml of fluid
16 (mg of nicotine per 1ml of fluid)
------- = 0.40mg of nicotine per drop
40 (how many drops per 1ml)
0.40 (mg of nicotine per drop) X 2.5 (number of drops needed to get 10 puffs) =
A total of 1 mg of nicotine is in the total number of drops that will be used to get 10 puffs.
Consider that an un-smoked cigarette contains anywhere from 9 to 12 mg of nicotine, about 2mg of that gets to the human body (yes, that much is lost due to the heat from the cigarette) and then of that 2mg, only about 1mg of it is absorbed...how much are we really getting when we start off with 1mg?
My final hypothesis based on all of the above (including Eissenbergs findings) is that the real problem isn't the e-Cig or how it functions (although there is a correlation), but rather the e-juice we're using isn't at a high enough concentration (what I think is the real cause)...
I only wish I had the proper equipment, money and resources to do the testing...
- e-Cig's are as effective at nicotine delivery as puffing on an unlit cigarette.
- Test subjects were regularly measured for presence of nicotine in their bodies and other signs/symptoms of nicotine consumption (I.E. - Heart rate increase)
- 10 puffs were taken by each test subject.
- 16mg e-juice was used.
Now, as you can see from the first bullet point, the study concluded that e-cigs just aren't effective at getting nicotine in the blood stream of the user.
Now, the title of this thread is that the study may have been correct...sort of. What I mean is that the study definitely shows that the users had no nicotine in their systems...but it doesn't show that e-cigs aren't capable of delivering it.
I believe there is a case of confusing correlation and causation here.
Imagine that there was a study done on caffeine (for the sake of simplicity I'll leave out the use of a control group in my example). 10 Caucasians and 10 African-Americans were recruited for the study. The Caucasians were instructed to drink 3 8oz cups of caffeinated coffee with a 10 minute gap between cups. The African-Americans were to do the same. Then, 2 of the Caucasians suffered heart attacks but none of the African-Americans did.
Does that mean that Caucasians are more likely than African-Americans to suffer heart attacks due to the use of caffeine? Maybe...maybe not. Just because a certain event is correlated to an outcome, doesn't mean it is the cause of the outcome.
As it turns out, the study ended up showing that the two Caucasians that suffered heart attacks had pre-existing conditions that made them susceptible to heart attacks to begin with (for examples sake).
My thought is that it isn't that the e-cig and how it works (by vaporizing a nicotine solution) that isn't effective at delivering nicotine, but rather the solution not having a high enough concentration of nicotine in it.
I just performed a rather unscientific experiment. I say unscientific because you're about to see the use of the words "about", "roughly" and "close to". However, I think it is a good enough example to demonstrate my point.
I measured how many "drops" (from an eyedropper marked off with 0.25ml markings) were in 0.25ml of e-juice. Obviously the size of my "drop" might be different from the size of somebody else's "drop"...but you get the idea. I got 10 drops per 0.25ml of fluid.
I put a brand new atomizer (never used) on my battery, and put 1 drop of fluid on the wick.
I found that 1 drop yielded me 4 good "puffs" before I needed another "drop". Again, "puff" is a pretty subjective term, but you should get the idea.
That means I would need 2 and a half "drops" to get 10 puffs (as was done in the Eissenberg study).
So, here is some math:
10 (drops per 0.25ml) X 4 (number of 0.25ml increments in 1ml) = 40 drops per ml of fluid
16 (mg of nicotine per 1ml of fluid)
------- = 0.40mg of nicotine per drop
40 (how many drops per 1ml)
0.40 (mg of nicotine per drop) X 2.5 (number of drops needed to get 10 puffs) =
A total of 1 mg of nicotine is in the total number of drops that will be used to get 10 puffs.
Consider that an un-smoked cigarette contains anywhere from 9 to 12 mg of nicotine, about 2mg of that gets to the human body (yes, that much is lost due to the heat from the cigarette) and then of that 2mg, only about 1mg of it is absorbed...how much are we really getting when we start off with 1mg?
My final hypothesis based on all of the above (including Eissenbergs findings) is that the real problem isn't the e-Cig or how it functions (although there is a correlation), but rather the e-juice we're using isn't at a high enough concentration (what I think is the real cause)...
I only wish I had the proper equipment, money and resources to do the testing...
Last edited:
(kidding of course)
