The Dangers of E-Cigarettes: Toxic Metals Exposed

[Vininim]

The notion of METALs in vape at any significant levels sounds prepostorous to me.

Worse yet for the 'second hand' vape notion.

It's all about what significant means. Heating metal and eroding it with air increases the levels. Does is reach a significant level in a drag? Does it increase lung tissues(and plasma) levels in 1 day of chain vaping? Does it increase in 1 week? 1 year? 10 years? Is it enough to impact public health? How does it compare to modern life legal activities? Has the government the right to intervene to minimize the impact?

This is really about freedom and risk choices. If the vaping industry moves into the direction of "it's all ok and healthy, same as breathing country air" it is doing nothing different from tobacco industry. (Proving that it is the same as breathing pollution from modern life cities is a different approach. )

 

[Kent C]

They're grasping at anything now. The kids argument has failed when you look at the actual stats - less smokers and even less ecig users. The poison was big, now not so much - studies showing it as just plain stupid have won there. Now metals Next will be the plastics in the clearos, etc. etc. Actually all those things for certain people here have brought up over the years - some just as much fear mongering and some actually somewhat legit to where it has made changes in the industry. No human has died afaik, one animal and a few fires.... Not bad for over the five years I've been here. Not bad for a 'new industy'. Old industry's space heaters, for example, haven't done as well. There are always a few fires/deaths at the first cold weather in this area and I'm guessing other areas with the same weather as well.

 

[RCHagy74]

Second-hand e-cigarette smoke compared to regular cigarette smoke

That is what got my hackles raised though... e-cig smoke. Not that the emissions mentioned in the abstract were a much better description. Do you have a catalytic converter for that?

Dr. Farsalinos was going to try and have a comment about the journal article in a few days.


RC Hagy

 

[wisegirlz]

My "concerned" relative sent me this study and I sent her my conclusions:

The AIR you breathe everyday found to contain toxic metals:

 

[centurian1]

So this is good. This is very good, actually. Combined with the additional data supplied by the OP, you're better off vaping than breathing air.

Ok, ordered a new vaping tank that should see me through the day.

View attachment 369920

 

[Crunchy2k]

I was trying to make sense of the USC paper too. I appreciate the link to the supplemental data from the paper. I went to the OHSA site and the threshold for airborne nickel is 1mg/m^3. Plus the fact the metallic levels are at or below their measured outdoor air is mind boggling. I guess if the info wasn't presented in the wrong light, it wouldn't make news.
https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=standards&p_id=9992

 

[Katya]

A better guess from the info provided, would be that the source would be the outside air taken in through the air holes/paths.

But the graphic is complete BS!

And it completely fails to mention what they measured in the outside air: (below is air vs e-cig)

Cr: 5.53 vs 4.22
Ni: 5.57 vs 6.14 +/-2.9
Pb: 13.28 vs 9.85
Zn: 54.31 vs 56.08 +/- 21 (!)

Atmospheric dry deposition of trace met... [Environ Toxicol Chem. 2006] - PubMed - NCBI

They should have conducted this test in LA. Let me throw in some more numbers for comparison. Mean fluxes in urban areas of Los Angeles, CA (in bold).

Cr: 5.53 vs 4.22--3.2-9.1
Ni: 5.57 vs 6.14 +/-2.9--3.8-8.8
Pb: 13.28 vs 9.85--8.3-29
Zn: 54.31 vs 56.08 +/- 21 (!)--69-228 (hey, zinc is good for ya )

and

Cu: 11-34

Anybody want to look up the numbers for Beijing, China?

 

[DrMA]

Excellent and relevant comparison, Katya. In terms of risk, then, it looks like LA air is, on average, more dangerous than vapor. I propose we ban LA. if not, everybody in LA should be paying smokers' rate for health insurance, whether or not they smoke.

 

[Steeldragon]

Definately wonder they tested the outside air. I know some cities at certain times of the day OMG. Like the last poster stated imagine testing the air in LA on the freeway at 5:15 pm.

 

[Katya]

Excellent and relevant comparison, Katya. In terms of risk, then, it looks like LA air is, on average, more dangerous than vapor. I propose we ban LA. if not, everybody in LA should be paying smokers' rate for health insurance, whether or not they smoke.

Hey! Let's not get carried away!

But seriously, I would really like to know what I'm inhaling when I'm stuck in traffic on the 405 behind an 18-wheeler on a smoggy August day....

 

[Steeldragon]

I would really hate to see what that study would reveal. <shivers>

 

[Racehorse]

But seriously, I would really like to know what I'm inhaling when I'm stuck in traffic on the 405 behind an 18-wheeler on a smoggy August day....

It depends on how you look at this stuff.

I look at risks as "cumulative".

External toxins like abnormally high air pollution, or drinking too much alcohol, are free radical generators that do damage to cells in excess of what one's body can defend with antioxidants it produces naturally.

If one is looking at free radical generators, then it is not really appropriate to compare them, one must actually "add them up." Cellular damage can occur with *each* incidence, so it's not really a matter of "well I live in an area with a lot of air pollution so I may as well add more stuff to an already burdened system."

This is why people who seek to improve their health, or at least minimize their risks in a meaningful way, choose to limit as many "factors" as they can. If you live in an smoggy city AND you drink too much alcohol, then one might look at cutting back on the latter, for instance, unless moving to a cleaner air region is an option.

Most of the research I've read over several decades does seem to point to stuff being cumulative, not a one-time thing. This is why disease process, and predictive science about getting certain diseases is often presented as a checklist.......potential for risk goes up markedly with each additional factor added.

 

[Katya]

It was a rhetorical question, Racehorse.

Just pointing out that the air in my neighborhood may be worse than e-cig vapor.

I live in SoCal, I love wine and an occasional cocktail, eat plenty of (home baked) white bread and butter and I vape and use Swedish snus. I also like chocolate. Life is good.

 

[NorthOfAtlanta]

I would really hate to see what that study would reveal. <shivers>

Not a study, but you would not believe what the hivac filters in newer cars look like after 15-30k miles in Atlanta traffic. Most are coal black when we change them at service time.



ETA: One of the reasons I agreed with WHO when they said that there is a good chance that air pollution causes more cancer than smoking.

 

[Jingles]

My local ABC station just did a news report about this study-they actually came out and said ecigs may be more harmful than regular cigarettes. Unbelievable! I am mad!

 

[dragonpuff]

My local ABC station just did a news report about this study-they actually came out and said ecigs may be more harmful than regular cigarettes. Unbelievable! I am mad!

Yup, I just saw an article on Medical News Today saying that "the secondhand smoke [sic] from e-cigarettes contains certain harmful metals that are significantly higher than those in secondhand smoke from traditional cigarettes." Um, if you look at the actual data, aside from chromium, the numbers are NOT significantly higher (at least if you want to adhere to what "statistically significant" actually means) - in fact, the differences are negligible. As for chromium? It's higher in outdoor air.

They even go so far as to state that amounts of nickel in vapor were "4 times higher" than in cigarette smoke! In fact they made a real show of that, it's in the picture caption as well as in the article in bold. The data don't even show that!

Let's all brace ourselves for more painful data twisting as this story gets bigger and bigger...

 

[Mediaguy]

As far as I could tell, Nickel and Chromium are *barely* present in tobacco smoke, and so it would make sense they "concentrate" on these, which they admit are not the result of the vapor but probably some component of the device itself.

On top of that, the amounts of nickel and chromium found was actually equal to or lower than the amount of the same particulates in the air we all breathe every day (unless you live in the Himalayas one presumes).

In other words, they didn't lie, they just misrepresented the significance of the facts in their conclusions (and you know what the media is most likely to read, and what they will do with that info).

So I must sigh a big breath of lightly laden chromium and nickel air...

 

[bigdancehawk]

As far as I could tell, Nickel and Chromium are *barely* present in tobacco smoke, and so it would make sense they "concentrate" on these, which they admit are not the result of the vapor but probably some component of the device itself.

On top of that, the amounts of nickel and chromium found was actually equal to or lower than the amount of the same particulates in the air we all breathe every day (unless you live in the Himalayas one presumes).

In other words, they didn't lie, they just misrepresented the significance of the facts in their conclusions (and you know what the media is most likely to read, and what they will do with that info).

So I must sigh a big breath of lightly laden chromium and nickel air...

Misrepresenting the significance of the facts is lying in my book.

 

[DrMA]

Misrepresenting the significance of the facts is lying in my book.

There's usually a big difference between statistical significance and real world meaning. IOW, just because metals concentrations may have been found to be significantly different from a statistical perspective, does not mean that the difference is meaningful or relevant in terms of risk.

Read this highly influential paper from the field of ecology discussing this topic: https://imedea.uib-csic.es/bc/gep/docs/pdfsgrupo/articulos/2008/14.Acta Oecol alex(2008).pdf

And an article about the same conceptual difference for medicine: Statistical Definitions & Concepts

 

[dragonpuff]

In other words, they didn't lie, they just misrepresented the significance of the facts in their conclusions

As far as the Medical News Today article is concerned, they both misrepresented and lied.

They misrepresented when they said that chromium is found in concentrations 4 times higher than in cigarette smoke. The misrepresentation comes in the form of the convenient omission of the fact that it is still less than in outdoor air.

They lied when they said that nickel is found in concentrations 4 times higher than in cigarette smoke. The data show that nickel in vapor is only slightly higher than in cigarette smoke, and the difference is so small it is not statistically significant (according to the margins of error listed in the data - the amounts may as well be the same). Thus, to say nickel is 4 times higher in vapor is an outright lie.

It is a misrepresentation when the truth is stretched or twisted to mean something it doesn't. It is a lie when facts are simply made up, whether it be with deceptive intent or simply out of convenience.