Minty e-cig contains carcinogen called pulegone?

[damachine]

Hi,

I just read reports that pulegone, which is found in peppermint oil and is a carcinogen, are found in "minty" e-cigs.
Vape Pods Taste Minty Thanks to Extremely High Levels of a Chemical Banned in Food

High levels of cancer-causing chemical found in mint and menthol e-cigarettes: Study

This causes concern as I've been mixing my own juice using menthol crystals and PG, VG. I wonder if pulegone is found in menthol crystals too. As I understand, menthol crystal is derived from peppermint, just like pulegone, but that doesn't mean menthol has pulegone does it? It seems menthol has its own molecular structure.

Thanks

 

[Skeebo]

Hi,

I just read reports that pulegone, which is found in peppermint oil and is a carcinogen, are found in "minty" e-cigs.
Vape Pods Taste Minty Thanks to Extremely High Levels of a Chemical Banned in Food

High levels of cancer-causing chemical found in mint and menthol e-cigarettes: Study

This causes concern as I've been mixing my own juice using menthol crystals and PG, VG. I wonder if pulegone is found in menthol crystals too. As I understand, menthol crystal is derived from peppermint, just like pulegone, but that doesn't mean menthol has pulegone does it? It seems menthol has its own molecular structure.

Thanks

 

[fiddleshe]

Would be a question for a chemist which I am not but I am interested in knowing.

 

[Tabac man]

Vice News have joined the bandwagon.

 

[fiddleshe]

Im curious what mint they put in my toothpaste. Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Falconeer]

I can't help remembering how when I was a boy back in the 1950s and you got a dose of bronchitis in the winter when the world ran on coal and just about all adults smoked, you got trundled round to the Doctors - where you got a cough bottle and your mother was told to get menthol crystals from the chemist, put them into a bowl of boiling water and get you to inhale the steam with a big towel over your head and overlapping the bowl so that none of the "good vapour" would be lost.

O tempora, o mores!

 

[ScottP]

Look the real truth is that we do not know what the long term effects of every single ingredient in every single flavor will be. If you are concerned about any particular flavor, then my suggestion would be not to use that flavor.

 

[bombastinator]

Also not a chemist, but my memory of menthol is that it is not great for you. It also doesn’t heal anything. That menthol hot water thing was about as effective as a mustard plaster on your chest and did about the same thing. I don’t personally use menthol or mint oils because menthol is menthol and mint oil is oil.

According to the study this was only even found out a year ago, so you’ve possibly been eating it most of your life. The deeming was in 2016, which predates the research, so it’s probably not on the banned substances list for that yet. It may find it’s way there though.

I suspect a lot of flavorings for a lot of things are going to changed based on this. If it’s true.

Interesting holes in the article though: they don’t say which ones, which means they want you to be afraid of all of them, and they only talk about ecigs even though it’s clearly a chemical that should be in lots and lots of stuff. Including real mint. What about mint frosting? What about mint air freshener? What about toothpaste? Toothpaste would be a much bigger story. Everyone uses toothpaste (I like to think at least)
Only ecigs are mentioned. This sets off my BS alarm.

Let’s look at the wiki.
Pulegone - Wikipedia

Says that it was pulled as of October 2018, so not quite a year. Could be it was pulled from ecigs too, and they found an old one. Maybe deliberately.

It also says “natural pulegone may still be used” which implies BS because the whole natural foods loophole is BS to begin with. Chemicals are chemicals. It doesn’t matter where they come from. It’s bad for you or it’s not. There is conflicting data here. It could well be it IS bad for you but the toothpaste manufacturers threw an arm bar.

 

[ScottP]

Yeah if it is really dangerous, I don't want to think about how many starlight mints, Lifesaver Wintergreen, and other mint candies I have eaten in my life. Not to mention smoking menthol cigarettes, dipping Wintergreen Skoal, and using mint toothpaste and mouthwash. If pulegone is going to cause me to get cancer, I probably already have it.

 

[jandrew]

There were several studies on pulegone, all of which led to a GRAS rating from the FDA and FEMA and other organizations, at the levels used/consumed by humans as a flavor ingredient. Even considering the recent two-year rat & mouse study, which, under very high levels of exposure, did show carcinogenic effects (not genotoxic, but a mode of action resulting from cytotoxic damage from the extreme concentrations used) the FDA and other other organizations in US and Europe still rated it as GRAS (considering human consumption was many thousands of times lower than the thresholds required to show carcinogenic effects). However, certain consumer groups still petitioned the FDA to list synthetic pulegone as a banned food additive (among several others at the same time) because it had been proven to be carcinogenic (at what levels something is carcinogenic is apparently irrelevant according to some earlier rulings). And so it is banned as a food additive by the FDA. It is not banned as an additive in many/most other countries (including the EU). The FDA has not banned the use of mint/peppermint oils (naturally containing pulegone) in any way shape or form.

Edit to clarify: FEMA (in this case) is the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers’ Association

 

[stols001]

Altoids: The curiously strong cancer causing agent.

Can I just call it? Life causes death. Sure, if you want to fret, go ahead. If I allowed my physical body brain access to ALL the horrible things I have subjected it to, I'd probably die instantly.

Denial: It's not just a river in Egypt it is also a placebo agent. And those work pretty well, a medication and/or drug has to work REALLY hard to beat out the placebo effect.

I will say, once DIAGNOSED with cancer, the placebo "I'm so well effect" doesn't seem to work so well so if you are more than halfway there, brace yourself and get treatment. I hear treatment sucks slightly worse than dying...

Aww hell Scott P said it best. Stop vaping it if you are worried. Mainly because you are worried, probably not so much due to imminent risk of death. Although, again, I am not a doctor.

Anna

 

[Katya]

More in this thread:

New 'baddie'. Mint/ menthol flavor causes cancer.

 

[Tabac man]

If anyone is worried found out if your favourite menthols/mints are synthetic. Unless I have understood it all wrong, there is no pulegone in synthetic flavours.

 

[Tabac man]

In the UK OnePoundLiquid claim there is no pulegone in any of their flavourings.

''Further media coverage has been released today (17/09/2019) regarding the pulegone additive (a constituent of oil extracts from mint plants) being present within menthol and peppermint vapes that could potentially cause liver cancer if absorbed in high enough quantities (The Telegraph, 2019). NextGEN360 do not use any flavourings that contain this additive. All our flavourings are sourced from the UK and full ingredient breakdowns are sent prior to launching the flavour for chemical hazards analysis''.

LiQuid's Response to US Vape Related Concerns | LiQuid Blog

 

[Eskie]

And to think ,all the menthol smokers never worried about that.

 

[zoiDman]

What, Exactly, does this Statement mean?

“We found that for all mint and menthol liquids that we analyzed, the range was 300-6,000, where levels should be at least above 10,000,” Dr. Sairam Jabba, Senior Research Associate at Duke University and co-author of the study, told ABC News.

High levels of cancer-causing chemical found in mint and menthol e-cigarettes: Study

 

[bombastinator]

This seems to be a necro topic. Dealt with many months ago.

 

[zoiDman]

This seems to be a necro topic. Dealt with many months ago.

Gotcha...

But besides the obvious Numerical comparison, I was wondering things like...

How Many e-Liquids were Examined?
What were Mean/Median/Mode values observed?
What were the Testing Protocols?
Units?
Units per Volume?
Units per Inhalation?
Units of Absorption?
Published OSHA/NIH/etc guidelines for Long Term Effects?
Published OSHA/NIH/etc guidelines for Inhalation Toxicity?

Things like that?

 

[CMD-Ky]

What, Exactly, does this Statement mean?

“We found that for all mint and menthol liquids that we analyzed, the range was 300-6,000, where levels should be at least above 10,000,” Dr. Sairam Jabba, Senior Research Associate at Duke University and co-author of the study, told ABC News.

High levels of cancer-causing chemical found in mint and menthol e-cigarettes: Study

Who knows? The good doctor is a beacon of clear thought and eloquent verbal expression. His only problem is that the depth and breadth of his knowledge is so extensive that he finds communication with us commoners difficult.

 

[bombastinator]

Gotcha...

But besides the obvious Numerical comparison, I was wondering things like...

How Many e-Liquids were Examined?
What were Mean/Median/Mode values observed?
What were the Testing Protocols?
Units?
Units per Volume?
Units per Inhalation?
Units of Absorption?
Published OSHA/NIH/etc guidelines for Long Term Effects?
Published OSHA/NIH/etc guidelines for Inhalation Toxicity?

Things like that?

You wan t that from a VICE article? They were unacceptably vague even on the basic stuff.