Yeah... his post should be disregarded but I was writing up a couple longer posts (one for the DV forum asking about Loco). My estimate from the SHU was right about what you were saying, 30mg/ml. My guesstimate at your triple hot was 0.15%
From "Inhalation Toxicology" by Harry Salem, Sidney A. Katz 2006 CRC Press
Two short excerpts:
"Studies reporting on capsaicin indicate that it is capable of producing mutagenic and carcinogenic effects, sensitization, cardiovascular and pulmonary toxicity and neurotoxicity. It has also been reported to induce impairment in thermoregulation against overheating. "
Under Animal Toxicology:
"The pharmacological actions of capsaicin were characterized in the 1950s. (Issekutz et al., 1950; Toh et al., 1955). Glinsukon etal., (1980) studied the acute toxicity of capsaicin in several species and found that capsaicin is highly toxic by all routes of administration except gastric, rectal, and dermal."
Sorry Nikhil, but the studies are there, have been for over 60 years. Yourself and other suppliers who add capsaicin and other additives are doing so at direct risk to the customers. If you had properly done research in medical journals, and not as a graduate of Google University, then you would have clearly seen what peer reviewed science says. This is why CLEAR labeling of EVERY ingredient used ought to be mandatory. Laymans like yourself who are constructing their own concoctions will one day give the FDA their death from something like someone going into anaphylactic shock, and that will be the first step to a ban. I would rather see regulation before that. But to come into a DiY thread and act as an authority on what is safe to inhale when you obviously do not have the knowledge, or done the research, that is beyond irresponsible, it's downright abuse.
Edited for spelling errors
You really really better be able to do better than this in proving your claims before tossing out statements like this. Your "proof" is inadequate at best and more often heavily misleading.
First of all, this is pulled from a
book talking about pepper spray as one thing used for riot control. Your first excerpt says "capsaicin
is capable of producing …". Well, if you drink enough water it is acutely toxic too. In fact, just for fun we could compare just how far out of normal use ranges one must go for the type of toxicity you're talking about with capsaicin vs. water, just to show how absurd your statements are.
I do think that Nikhil
could make it clear what his "triple hot" really means, that it is capsaicin, and give an estimate what level is present. I still think it is pretty clear that the amount people are inhaling is nowhere near what was used in the research you are citing.
There are studies showing a very dangerous disease from exposure to diacetyl, but that is in manufacturing using either pure diacetyl or flavorings typically up to 20% in solution (see attached Word doc). The highest % of diacetyl I know of is around 2% in FA Pandoro, and that is then heavily diluted into ejuice, not vaped straight. I think that a session of vaping Pandoro ejuice falls below even the lowest occupational exposure thresholds NIOSH is concerned about. I don't yet understand 100% how the body processes diacetyl, but the problem isn't chronic accumulation of particulates (like how a lifetime of lipstick-wearing leaves a buildup of wax in one's stomach).
I'm not going to get into diacetyl, but this is just to show that there are no studies proving danger at the lower levels we're talking about. It raises concern, but is far from conclusive proof of any danger. The deaths in the book you are using come from bronchioconstriction or other problems when people are dosed with capsaicin far above what people get from vaping.
Your second cite:
"The pharmacological actions of capsaicin were characterized in the 1950s. (Issekutz et al., 1950; Toh et al., 1955). Glinsukon etal., (1980) studied the acute toxicity of capsaicin in several species and found that capsaicin is highly toxic by all routes of administration except gastric, rectal, and dermal."
is not peer-reviewed studies relating to your first cite:
"Studies reporting on capsaicin indicate that it is capable of producing mutagenic and carcinogenic effects, sensitization, cardiovascular and pulmonary toxicity and neurotoxicity. It has also been reported to induce impairment in thermoregulation against overheating. "
There's just so much wrong with what you are saying that I don't even know where to begin.
Do you even understand what acute toxicity vs. chronic toxicity means? The author of the book in question cites no work for this 2nd series of claims. I wonder why. Could it be because there has been contradictory research on some of those issues? See
here pg. 4-5:
Several researchers reviewed evidence that capsaicin is carcinogenic in animals and found that the evidence was inconclusive 10,28,38
Researchers have demonstrated that capsaicin is mutagenic and genotoxic in some studies using bacterial and rodent models 36 but not in others 37,38
If you knew the first thing about doing these LD50/LC50 inhalation studies, it would be that the effects on species can vastly differ.
Capsaicin has demonstrated mutagenic effects in some research 46 but not in other studies.26 Impurities in the extract may be responsible for mutagenic effects because the studies that failed to demonstrate mutagenic effects used pure capsaicin 26,43
There's also quite a lot of studies showing anti-cancer properties of capsaicin. So yes, there are studies showing carcinogenic effects, there's also studies showing why these studies probably used improper methods like impure capsaicin, as well as contradictory research showing anti-carcinogenic benefits.
Yes, there are all sorts of studies showing sensitization. You need to keep in mind how people are not injecting Diablo Loco into their veins here. People take a couple puffs of that stuff and stop. Their body tells them "danger" way before they get to LD50 intake levels. We're also not even talking about Loco, but whatever small amount Nikhil adds to his blends. I really doubt you can show studies using these lower concentrations to prove anything about (de-)sensitization here.
Now, regarding some of these other toxicity claims, do you know what LD50 means? It means that out of a sample of 100 subjects, that a certain dose will kill half of them. These are a few of the LD50 values given for
intravenous studies in your book (mg/kg):
0.0012 - VX nerve gas
0.30 - nicotine
0.40 - capsaicin
10.0 - methamphetamine
One thing I really want to learn is how the lungs handle breakdown of flavor chemicals, if at all, besides being directly absorbed into the bloodstream. The fact that not 100% of the vapor is actually absorbed has to be taken into account (you exhale some of it). There's some sort of mucus lining the lungs AFAIK, so I think this would at least somewhat slow absorption, versus an injection.
Intravenous LD50 can be taken into account, but it is not an inhalation REL or valid LC50. The intraperitoneal LD50 (body cavity injection) is 8 mg/kg or 20 times higher than intravenous LD50. The oral LD50 is given
one place as 160 mg/kg or a further 20 times higher than that.
This study again gives:
Human LD50: 500-5,000mg
It also says that LD50's for mice have ranged from 47.2-2,500 mg/kg (think they are talking about injections to the stomach). So, you can see that the route of administration matters greatly. Also see the parts about dermal absorption and no known LC50 (inhalation).
That paper pretty much backs what I said about it probably only being any type of concern for people with asthma or other things like COPD.
Capsaicin temporarily causes bronchoconstriction, coughing, nausea, and incoordination in the upper body in humans following inhalation.26
• Airway resistance increased following inhalation of capsaicin in both mild asthmatics and
non-asthmatic people at doses that are below those eliciting the cough response.27
• People suffering from asthma and other respiratory diseases may be more sensitive to capsaicin than other individuals.
Even with these, somebody needs to track down the studies they are talking about and look at the dose levels they are talking about and compare to vaping before jumping to conclusions.
edit: There's way more I could say about this but don't have time. The .DOC file I mentioned it too big so I uploaded it
here
