E-cigarettes have become very popular in the last 10 years, but a large number of e-cigarette-related deaths and illnesses can make people more cautious about a product that has been banned in some places; recently a death was reported in Belgium from an 18-year-old male who smoked an e-cigarette, the first such case reported in Belgium; here are 5 things we need to know about e-cigarettes.
Early designs for e-cigarettes began in the 1960s in the United States, but Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik is credited with inventing an early commercial version of the e-cigarette in the 2000s; trying to rid himself of a pack-a-day cigarette, Hon Lik applied for a patent between 2003-2005, but the e-cigarette device he developed was quickly superseded as the international market exploded.
A recent study published in the open-access journal Respiratory Research found that e-cigarettes may have similar effects to traditional cigarettes on bacteria associated with smoking-related diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma. Although e-cigarettes are considered a safer alternative to cigarettes, recent studies have shown that acute lung disease may be associated with the use of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes as well as traditional cigarettes. A team of researchers from the School of Pharmacy at Queen's University Belfast, UK, compared the effects of cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor on bacteria known to be associated with smoking-related long-term lung disease.
The authors exposed Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa to cigarette smoke extracts or e-cigarette vapor extracts for incubation. The control bacteria were cultured in the absence of cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor extracts; they found that exposure to cigarette smoke or e-cigarette vapor extracts did not appear to hurt the growth of these bacteria. However, exposure to these extracts increased biofilm formation in these bacteria, an effect that was not seen in the unexposed control group. Biofilms are aggregates of one or more types of microorganisms, and increased biofilm formation is known to be a process in many different types of microbial infections. This finding may suggest that cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor enhance the harmful levels of common lung pathogenic bacteria and facilitate the formation of persistent infections.
According to a rat study published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, e-cigarette use may affect fertility and pregnancy outcomes. Many young people and pregnant women are using e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to smoking, but we know little about their effects on fertility and pregnancy outcomes. E-cigarettes are contributing to the increased use of tobacco products among youth. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of high school students using e-cigarettes rose from 2.1 million in 2017 to 3.6 million in 2018, a number that differs from the number of young people by about 1.5 million.
We found that e-cigarette use before pregnancy significantly delays the implantation of a fertilized egg into the uterus, thereby delaying and reducing fertility (in rats), the researchers said. We also found that e-cigarette use during pregnancy altered the long-term health and metabolism of female offspring, resulting in lifelong secondary effects on the developing fetus."
In a recent study published in the international journal iScience, a team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, found that e-cigarettes, which are typically targeted at young people and pregnant women, produce a stress response in neural stem cells, which are key cells in the brain.
Stem cells exist throughout life as specialized cells with more specialized functions, such as brain cells, blood cells, or bone. Stem cells are far more sensitive to stress than the specialized cells they become, and it provides a model for studying exposure to toxic substances, such as cigarette smoke. Electronic cigarettes (ECs) are nicotine delivery devices that atomize nicotine and flavor chemicals by heating them. Researchers are not yet sure how the chemicals in ECs affect neural stem cells, especially mitochondria - key organelles that serve as the cell's powerhouse and regulate cell health.
If you think e-cigarettes aren't harmful, think twice. A study done by the University of Southern California involving 93 people showed the same cancer-related molecular changes in the oral tissues of e-cigarette users as smokers, further casting doubt on e-cigarettes as a harmless alternative to cigarettes. The study, recently published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, comes at a time of rapid growth in the e-cigarette market and growing public health concerns.
On the positive side, recent studies have found that e-cigarettes are almost twice as effective as other nicotine alternatives in helping to quit smoking. But e-cigarette use has surpassed cigarette use among teens, and there is growing evidence that e-cigarette use can lead to nicotine addiction as well as future smoking. "The available evidence suggests that e-cigarettes are not just what people think of as hookahs; although the concentrations of most carcinogenic compounds in e-cigarette products are significantly lower than those found in cigarettes, there is no such thing as a safe dose of carcinogens. The researchers emphasize that the molecular changes found in the study are not cancerous and are not even considered precancerous, but are a warning that cancer may occur in the future.
The slogan "smoking is bad for your health" is familiar to most people. Traditional cigarettes produce a lot of "second-hand smoke" and soot when lit, which has an impact on the environment and the health of those around them. As an alternative to traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes have solved these problems to a certain extent and have been accepted by more and more smokers. In recent years, e-cigarettes are widely respected as an aid to smoking cessation by businesses and people who wish to quit smoking, in the caliber of various commercial propaganda e-cigarettes as if there are a hundred benefits and no harm. However, is this the case? A study by researchers from the University of Arizona College of Medicine and other institutions, published in J Am Coll Cardiol, reveals the potential risks of e-cigarettes to the cardiovascular system.
In the article, the team used human induced pluripotent stem cell differentiated endothelial cells (ipsC-ECs) as the study subjects and analyzed the effects of endothelial cell exposure to six different nicotine levels of e-cigarette oils and under the serum of e-cigarette smokers through high-throughput screening techniques. The vascular endothelium has a very important role in normal vascular function, and the effect of e-cigarettes on endothelial cells can further elucidate its effect on cardiovascular function.
In a recent study published in the international journal PeerJ, researchers from Newcastle University found for the first time that people who smoke e-cigarettes may have the same gut flora as non-smokers, while the gut microbiome in smokers is significantly altered.
In the article, the researchers analyzed smokers, e-cigarette users, and non-smokers, collecting samples from the participants' digestive tracts (both oral and intestinal) and analyzing the bacteria in them; the researchers found significant changes in the gut flora in the smoker population organism, i.e., increased levels of Prevotella, which may be directly associated with an increased risk of colon cancer and colitis in individuals; in the smoking population, the In people who smoke, levels of Bacillus spp. bacteria (a type of beneficial flora) in their gut are significantly reduced, and low levels of Bacillus spp. are often directly associated with an increased risk of Crohn's disease and the development of obesity in individuals.
A new study showing that nicotine inhaled during e-cigarette smoking causes DNA damage in the heart, lungs, and bladder of mice, as well as in human lung and bladder cells cultured in vitro, published in the journal PNAS, suggests that e-cigarette smoking increases the risk of cancer and heart disease, and Research indicating the risks of e-cigarette smoking to human health should be intensified.
The researchers say the DNA changes are similar to those associated with secondhand smoke. Specifically, Tang and his team found two mutation-inducing compounds in lung, bladder, and heart cells exposed to e-cigarette smoke. DNA repair activity and expression of the repair proteins XPC and OGG1/2 were decreased in lung tissue from mice exposed to e-cigarette smoke.
According to new research from the University of California, San Francisco, e-cigarette use significantly increases a person's risk of developing chronic lung diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The study also found that people who smoked both e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes had a higher risk of developing chronic lung disease than those who used only one of the two products. By far, this was the most common pattern among adult e-cigarette users.
The findings, published recently in the journal Am J Prev Med, are based largely on an analysis of publicly available data in which researchers studied lung disease in more than 32,000 adult U.S. smokers from 2013 to 2016. Although some earlier studies found an association between e-cigarette use and lung disease, the researchers were unable to determine whether e-cigarettes caused the lung disease or whether people with lung disease were more likely to use e-cigarettes. Initially, these participants did not report lung disease and they had used e-cigarettes or smoked from the beginning. The researchers followed them for three years, and the new longitudinal study provides stronger evidence than previous studies of a causal relationship between e-cigarette use and lung disease in adults.
E-cigarette businesses are introducing creamy, fruity flavors and other fragrances to attract young people. An international team of researchers recently published a report in the journal Scientific Reports saying that regardless of whether e-cigarettes contain nicotine, some flavored e-cigarettes can damage the respiratory tract and aggravate respiratory diseases such as asthma. Researchers at the University of Vermont and other institutions let mice inhale e-cigarette smoke in various flavors twice a day for some time, then exposed the mice to air with allergens and conducted a controlled study with mice that did not inhale e-cigarettes.
The results found that different fragrances produced different damage to the respiratory tract, for example, black licorice flavor increased respiratory inflammation, cinnamon flavor increased respiratory sensitivity, and banana pudding flavor led to more severe tissue scarring. Researchers did not specifically analyze which component of the flavor additive caused these damages. However, previous studies have confirmed the toxicity of some cream-based and cinnamon-based additives in e-cigarettes, while menthol-flavored additives exceed carcinogenic limits
