Doctors have discovered yet another way that vaping — and vaping THC, in particular — can damage the lungs: when the metal coils of electronic cigarettes heat up to turn e-liquids into aerosols, toxic metals can leach into the liquid, leading to a rare condition usually only seen in industrial metal workers.
Are toxic metals in e-cigarette vapour dangerous?
Toxic metals in e-cigarette vapour, at any concentration, aren’t ideal; and with the release of this study it’s likely that we’ll see more innovation going into ceramic coils and safer alloys. So the vaping industry is moving forward thanks to studies like this.
Do vaping coils leach toxic metals into eliquid?
You may have read, sometime last week, about vaping coils leaching toxic metals into eliquid. It was pretty big news in certain circles, and everyone from The Sun to Mashable decided to run with the story. And why wouldn’t they? It’s an easy story to write and it’s ostensibly for the public good.
Why do e-cigarettes have metal coils?
That could mean that "in addition to the metal coil, other factors could play a role in e-cigarette metal exposure, such as the voltage used to heat the coil," said Rule, also an assistant scientist at Hopkins. Unlike traditional smoking, vaping works by heating liquids that contain nicotine.
Is vaping bad for your health?
Metals inhaled from vaping are not a health risk Posted on November 3, 2018 The daily exposure to metals from vaping are below established safety limits with normal use and are of minor health concern, according to a recently published study by leading researchers Konstantinos Farsalinos and Brad Rodu in Inhalation Toxicology.
How does vaping work?
How many vapers were recruited to the Hopkins study?
What device did the researchers use to examine the chemical content of e-liquid, vapor and residue?
What is in e-liquid?
Do new coils produce more toxins?
Does vaping put you at risk?
Is vaping a safe alternative to smoking?
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Study: Lead and Other Toxic Metals Found in E-Cigarette ‘Vapors’
Potentially dangerous levels of metals leak from some e-cigarette heating coils. Significant amounts of toxic metals, including lead, leak from some e-cigarette heating coils and are present in the aerosols inhaled by users, according to a study from scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Toxic Heavy Metals Are Leaking From E-Cigarettes Into ... - ScienceAlert
The study comes on the back of findings that flavourings added to vaping liquids can also come with added health risks.. None of this should be taken to mean cigarettes are a safer choice - traditional smoking will still give you a lung full of heavy metals, such as cadmium and lead. But it is a good moment to remember safer doesn't mean safe.
How did they find vapers willing to help with their research?
They “recruited 58 participants using tank-style devices through vaping conventions and flyers posted in e-cigarette shops.” Why would vape shops help any American vaping researcher, knowing that their grants are usually based on the understanding that they will produce evidence the FDA can use to regulate vapes? That’s a good question.
Is vaping a common problem?
Unfortunately, vaping researchers willing to twist their results to shape regulations are all too common. The results seem clearly misinterpreted to create fear, and it’s difficult to believe that the authors didn’t do that deliberately. Naturally, the press release was available before the study was even published, and the authors eagerly participated in the gleefully scary coverage.
Is there metal in e-liquid?
The truth of the study is that there are metals in e-liquid vapor — just not in high enough concentrations to be especially concerning. But vapers should be aware of it, and it’s probably something manufacturers should try to reduce as much as possible. That’s the story here.
Do vapers breathe vapor?
But vapers don’t breathe vapor constantly all day long. Environmental standards are the wrong way to measure something that is only inhaled occasionally.
Why use e-liquid with a higher concentration of nicotine?
Using an e-liquid with a higher concentration of nicotine can help to reduce vapour production and reduce the inhaled chemicals.
What is a vaporiser made of?
Vaporisers use heating coils made of metals such as titanium, nickel, kanthal (iron-chromium-aluminium), nichrome (nickel-chromium with trace iron, copper, titanium, aluminum and others) and stainless steel. When the coil is heated, some metal is released into the surrounding e-liquid and then into the aerosol.
Is inhaled metals carcinogenic?
Legitimate concerns have been raised about inhaled metals as some metals are carcinogenic (ca using cancer) and are toxic to the body above a certain dose. However, some studies have used incorrect assessment methods and the risk has been exaggerated.
Is vaping harmful to health?
Metals inhaled from vaping are not a health risk. The daily exposure to metals from vaping are below established safety limits with normal use and are of minor health concern, according to a recently published study by leading researchers Konstantinos Farsalinos and Brad Rodu in Inhalation Toxicology. Vaporisers use heating coils made of metals ...
Can nickel exceed safety limits?
In the case of nickel, extremely heavy users could exceed the safety limit. However for all other metals, it was virtually impossible to exceed safety limits. The authors of the Olmedo study had claimed that the metals were released at unsafe levels.
What are the toxic metals in e-cigarettes?
Significant amounts of toxic metals, including lead, leak from some e-cigarette heating coils and are present in the aerosols inhaled by users, according to a study from scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
What are e-cigarette coils made of?
E-cigarette heating coils typically are made of nickel, chromium and a few other elements, making them the most obvious sources of metal contamination, although the source of the lead remains a mystery. Precisely how metals get from the coil into the surrounding e-liquid is another mystery. “We don’t know yet whether metals are chemically leaching from the coil or vaporizing when it’s heated,” Rule says. In an earlier study of the 56 vapers, led by Angela Aherrera, MPH, a DrPH student at the Bloomberg School, the levels of nickel and chromium in urine and saliva were related to those measured in the aerosol, confirming that e-cigarette users are exposed to these metals.
How does an e-cigarette work?
E-cigarettes typically use a battery-supplied electric current that passes through a metal coil to heat nicotine-containing “e-liquids,” creating an aerosol—a mix including vaporized e-liquid and tiny liquid droplets . Vaping, the practice of inhaling this aerosol as if it were cigarette smoke, is now popular especially among teens, young adults and former smokers. A 2017 survey of 8th-, 10th- and 12th-grade students in public and private schools, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found that about one in six had used e-cigarettes in the previous 30 days.
What metals are toxic in aerosols?
Of the metals significantly present in the aerosols, lead, chromium, nickel and manganese were the ones of most concern, as all are toxic when inhaled. The median lead concentration in the aerosols, for example, was about 15 µg/kg, or more than 25 times greater than the median level in the refill dispensers. Almost 50 percent of aerosol samples had lead concentrations higher than health-based limits defined by the Environmental Protection Agency. Similarly, median aerosol concentrations of nickel, chromium and manganese approached or exceeded safe limits.
Is arsenic in vapes toxic?
The researchers also detected significant levels of arsenic, a metal-like element that can be highly toxic, in refill e-liquid and in the corresponding tank e-liquid and aerosol samples from 10 of the 56 vapers. How the arsenic got into these e-liquids is yet another mystery—and another potential focus for regulators.
Who regulates e-cigarettes?
The Food and Drug Administration has the authority to regulate e-cigarettes but is still considering how to do so. The finding that e-cigarettes expose users—known as vapers—to what may be harmful levels of toxic metals could make this issue a focus of future FDA rules.
Do e-cigarettes contain metal?
Consistent with prior studies, they found minimal amounts of metals in the e-liquids within refilling dispensers, but much larger amounts of some metals in the e-liquids that had been exposed to the heating coils within e-cigarette tanks. The difference indicated that the metals almost certainly had come from the coils. Most importantly, the scientists showed that the metal contamination carried over to the aerosols produced by heating the e-liquids.
What metals are in e-cigarettes?
Studies of samples from users, including blood and urine, showed that e-cigarettes are a source of exposure to a large list of metals, including lead and arsenic. With the exception of cadmium, e-cigarette users had more of all metals studied in their bodily fluids than smokers did.
Is a coil a metal?
The coil itself is a metal source; so are solders inside the liquid reservoir. Several of the studies show that total metal levels rise after the liquid in these devices gets heated, lending support to the theory that the heating process is what releases the elements.
Is vaping harmful?
Credit: Shutterstock. E-cigarette liquids and vapors contain metals and metalloids at levels likely to be harmful to people’s health, and people who vape have higher levels of these elements in their blood and other bodily fluids than cigarette and cigar smokers do, ...
Why does vaping marijuana cause a lot of leaching?
Vaping marijuana raises the risk of this leaching, because the devices must be heated to much higher temperatures to aerosolize THC than to aerosolize nicotine. Previous research has shown that a greater amount of toxic substances are released as the voltage needed to heat vape devices increases.
What metals are in e-liquid?
When the doctors tested the e-liquid left in the device, they found several metals: nickel, aluminum, manganese, lead, cobalt and chromium.
How old is the woman who vapes?
A case report published Wednesday in the European Respiratory Journal describes a 49-year-old California woman who had symptoms now known to be associated with the more than 2,000 cases of vaping illnesses nationwide: shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing.
Does Zenpen come with prefilled cartridges?
What she did have was the ZenPen brand vape pen she'd been using for six months prior to getting sick. ZenPens do not come with pre-filled cartridges, so users must purchase their e-liquid elsewhere. ZenPen did not respond to NBC News' request for comment.
Can vaping damage your lungs?
The illness is usually only seen in industrial metal workers. Doctors have discovered yet another way that vaping — and vaping THC, in particular — can damage the lungs: when the metal coils of electronic cigarettes heat up to turn e-liquids into aerosols, toxic metals can leach into the liquid, leading to a rare condition usually only seen in ...
What metals are in vape liquid?
The researchers then measured the levels of a number of toxic metals like lead, chromium, nickel, and manganese, both in the eliquid and in the vapour. They found a significantly higher level of these metals in the vapour than in the eliquid, and concluded that something inside the vaping devices was leaching metal into the eliquid either while the eliquid was sitting in the tank, or when the eliquid was vapourised.
Is vaping bad for you?
For example, since nicotine is a stimulant, it puts a mild stress on your body, just like caffeine does, and that’s probably not ideal. The goal of vaping isn’t har m elimination, but harm reduction.
Is vaping safer than smoking tobacco?
Remember the PHE study from earlier this year? Where they suggested putting vaping on the NHS? That study claimed that vaping was 95% less dangerous than smoking traditional tobacco.
How much is a pack of 5 coils?
A pack of 5 replacement coils are $10.99. Cheaper than a pack of smokes in some states!
How many ml does a Q2 coil get?
I use the Q2 0.4 ohm coils and get about 60 ml through them before they need to be changed. I would view anything more as a really great outcome. Anything much less, annoying.
Can you boil Everclear coils?
If you really can't afford a new coil, try soaking that one in either Vodka (cheap is fine) or pure grain alcohol (Everclear as an example, I have seen other names but it will be 198 proof). Let it dry fully afterwards. If you can't afford the alcohol and don' t already have some, you can try boiling the coil. This does have the potential to damage it but if it makes it through it should taste cleaner. Again let it dry fully before use.
Can you vape with a burnt coil?
Vaping a burnt coil has the possibility of releasing some undesirable byproducts into your vape, it's also not a very pleasant experience, either.
How does vaping work?
Unlike traditional smoking, vaping works by heating liquids that contain nicotine.
How many vapers were recruited to the Hopkins study?
In the Hopkins study, published Feb. 21 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, investigators recruited 56 vapers in the Baltimore area to see whether the heating process introduces toxins into what is inhaled. The researchers used the vapers' own e-cigarette devices when examining the chemical content of e-liquid, vapor and residue.
What device did the researchers use to examine the chemical content of e-liquid, vapor and residue?
The researchers used the vapers' own e-cigarette devices when examining the chemical content of e-liquid, vapor and residue.
What is in e-liquid?
The team found that e-liquid exposed to heating coils produced a vapor containing significant amounts of chromium, lead, manganese, nickel and zinc. Highly toxic arsenic was also found in both the e-liquid and the heated vapor among a subset of 10 vapers, though how that metal got into the unheated e-liquid remains unclear.
Do new coils produce more toxins?
The team also noted that toxic metal levels seemed to be higher among vapers who changed their heating coils more often, suggesting that new coils may produce more toxins than older ones.
Does vaping put you at risk?
Vaping manufacturers knowingly put you at risk.
Is vaping a safe alternative to smoking?
Toxic Metals Found in E-Cigarette Vapor. MONDAY, Feb. 26, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- If you think that "vaping" is a safe alternative to smoking, new research suggests you might be inadvertently inhaling unsafe levels of toxic metals. Scientists say the tiny metal coils that heat the liquid nitrogen in e-cigarettes may contaminate ...
