Overall Quantity of Nicotine Vaped Daily - A Lot?

[Hoodlum]

I smoke around 4-5ml of liquid daily, which from what I can gather from checking a number of forums seems to be around average. Some people report as much as 10-15ml daily.

My juice is a 50/50 blend of 6mg nic/ml and 12 mg nic/ml, meaning I'm getting through approximately 4 x 9 = 36mg nicotine daily.

A Marlboro light has 0.8mg nicotine per cigarette - so I am having the equivalent of 45 analogs' worth of nicotine a day.

Does this strike anyone as an excessive amount of nicotine? I'm not even really at the high end of the scale compared to some people I've seen, who are vaping more like 60mg nicotine daily, or 75 analogs' worth. When I smoked analogs, I only ever had a few a day.

A study on rats found no increase in mortality, in atherosclerosis or frequency of tumors for prolonged exposure to high doses of nicotine Long-term effects of inhaled nicotine. - PubMed - NCBI

My sleep quality is generally quite poor however, which could be attributed to experiencing nicotine withdrawal through the night, owing to nicotine's short half life.

Interested to hear thoughts.

 

[Izan]

Hi mate,


Absorption rates between smoking and vaping a vastly different.
I would speculate that the actual amount of nicotine your body receives would be but a fraction of the 36mg you consume.
I don't have the data handy, but the percentages from vaping are rather low versus smoking.


Cheers
I

 

[Hoodlum]

Cheers. It's hard to say on that front it seems. An old study here found that absorption was around 1/3, but this was on a very old, under-powered device by today's standards.

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep04133

It wouldn't seem too unreasonable to think with new devices, at least 50% is absorbed, but without having an up-to-date study with concrete figures it's guesswork.

 

[Rossum]

Does this strike anyone as an excessive amount of nicotine?

No, it doesn't. 36 mg/day is not a lot. There have been a number of informal survey threads here over the years and of course, the results tend to be shaped like a bell curve, which appears to center somewhere around 50 mg/day.

Anecdotal: After 3-1/2 years of vaping, I'm still at around 65 mg/day, down from 90-100.

 

[stols001]

I'm going to agree that less nicotine is absorbed via vaping than smoking, so I wouldn't really be alarmed at that calculation at all. You are probably getting less nicotine that that by a fair amount. I use around 5--6 ml per day as well, I think heavy users of juice are doing some serious sub0hming and lower nic content juice, for the most part. I'd have a hard time vaping more than I do now. That was never true for cigarettes for me, I was on a pretty linear upward curve, over time. I was around 3 p/pd until I quit. For some reason, nic satisfies me more quickly when I'm vaping it, even though I'm probably absorbing less. I don't know if that's due to all the gunk else that was in cigarettes, or what, but it's an interesting phenomenon.

Anna

 

[DaveP]

When I smoked, cutting down was a hassle. I'd still miss my nic hit when I smoked less. Multiple attempts at quitting smoking always found me buying a pack and returning to the habit.

OTOH, vaping hasn't affected me that way. Several years ago I dropped my nic level from 24mg down to 3mg over a 2 or 3 month period. At no time did I experience nic cravings or withdrawal symptoms. I just dropped my nic level in 6mg increments every time I ordered juice.

I'm not at all sure that we absorb nic the way we did when smoking. Most cigarette manufacturers use chemicals to put the nic into free base mode to ensure that the nic is absorbed.

Freebase nicotine - SourceWatch

Nicotine by itself would not be very potent in the body because nicotine is a base (made up of negatively-charged particles). This means it likes to absorb protons, or positively-charged particles. When nicotine molecules take on a positive charge, they become ions. An ion is any atom or molecule with a net electric charge obtained by giving off or receiving charged particles. Ions are less likely to vaporize and affect the body because they don't move across organic membranes very well. In order to turn nicotine into a more potent form that moves more quickly across human membranes, cigarette companies must turn nicotine into its de-protonated, or "freebase" form.

How tobacco companies freebase nicotine
To freebase nicotine, cigarette companies add ammonia, usually in the form of diammonium phosphate. The addition of ammonia, a base, de-protonates nicotine, making it cross through membranes in the body much more easily. This makes the drug more "bioavailable" to the lungs, brain and tissues. Because ammonia is also a base (negatively charged), it strips away protons from nicotine, turning it into "freebase" form. Scientists have collected the nicotine in cigarette smoke with filters, exposed it to ammonia, and measured how different concentrations of ammonia affect the ratios of protonated to "freebase" nicotine in cigarette smoke. Studies suggest that adding ammonia has a substantial effect on the amount of freebase nicotine contained in cigarette smoke

 

[vapdivrr]

Vape about 3 mls per day at 24mg. Never really has crossed my mind to lower nic, although
I did try 18mg once and it felt like just plain air, I guess I'm a TH junky.....

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Alien Traveler]

According to different sources that I saw absorption rate of nicotine from vapor is about 50%-90%. I like 50% better. Then your nicotine consumption is equal to not 45, but 22.5 cigarettes.
I believe quite a few vapers need more nicotine when vaping compared to time when they were smokers. Anyway, as it was said, it's not nicotine, but tar, that kills. Or something like that.

 

[dutch onsea]

In cigarettes there are of course a lot more addictive(mind altering) substances then only nicotine. The WTA(whole tobacco alkaloids)juice is therefore very handy in the beginning when you quit smoking. And all these alkaloids together have a much stronger effect on your body then E-juice