LOL, I would love to hear from doctor Cyrus on this...
Man BJ you know I always manage to make a house call when you ask, plus or minus a few hours
I read this article a while back and as always from Dr. F its a great one. Wish he, or people like him were more local so I could get involved in research like this. In fact I've been meaning to contact him anyway. Anyhow I'm no expert on the kind of work he's presenting here so all I can offer is my thoughts.
When I first read the article I remember thinking "I knew it!" (silly)...by which I mean I've thought (and said a few times) that if there is anything to worry about with ecigs its 1) heat/power 2) flavors (kudos to Kurt to opening my eyes to this) acting as a noxious stimulus to the organs in question as a result of vaping. Chronic injury can lead to very bad things. Of course heat in and of itself isn't dealt with as a direct insult to cells in the study, but heat/power as a potential way to liberate more 'bad stuff' into vapor is at least suggested.
Its "known" (always take this word with 2 grains of salt in the medical and scientific world, we 'know' so little and few are comfortable with that fact) that cell injury can be connected to cancer pathways. For example it often happens microscopic exam of skin cancer will reveal...ding ding ding...chronic sun damage sitting right adjacent to the lesion in question. Chronic acid reflux in the gut can lead to changes in the esophagus over time which when viewed microscopically appear as "intestinal metaplasia," e.g. the lining over the esophagus has transformed into something more like intestine, which in turn becomes an increased risk of cancer transformation.
Of course there are lots of apples, oranges and bananas here and establishing true causality is a hairy gorilla. But the point is you probably don't want to piss of your respiratory and oral/pharyngeal cell if you can help it.
I think Dr. F is careful to report the data at hand and not jump to any conclusions, which is necessary of course. Extrapolating from observed effects on cultured cells in the lab to a person in real vaping conditions is of course a slippery slope. It could of course be the case that using even the most dangerous flavor chronically will lead to minimal increase in risk as compared to cigarette smoke. But we won't figure that out definitively for a while. Meanwhile the good news from the paper is that 1) someone is digging into it 2) cigarette smoke seems massively worse
For my part I indulge in flavors as a sinful pleasure from time to time, but generally go unflavored > 95% of the time. I am however guilty of vaping at 25-30 watts these days
. For my part I think the safest way to vape is to ditch the flavors as much as possible, and only use as much power as you need. But I'm not the preachy type and we all do what we have to do at the end of the day...
