“Just because something is safe to consume as food does not mean that it’s safe to inhale.”
Mint flavouring e-cigarette liquids results in more vapour particles and is linked to worse lung function in smokers, according to research published in Respiratory Research from the University of Pittsburgh.
Researchers demonstrated that commercially available menthol-containing e-cigarette liquids produce more toxic microparticles than menthol-free juice using a specially designed robotic system that simulates the mechanics of human breathing and vaping behaviour.
Regardless of age, gender, race, number of pack-years smoked, use of nicotine or cannabis-containing vaping products, or patient records analysis from a cohort of e-cigarette smokers, menthol vapers took shallower breaths and had worse lung function than non-menthol smokers.
“Many people, especially youth, erroneously assume that vaping is safe, but even nicotine-free vaping mixtures contain many compounds that can potentially damage the lungs,” said senior author Kambez H. Benam, D.Phil., associate professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, according to Medical Xpress.
“Just because something is safe to consume as food does not mean that it’s safe to inhale.”
The global market for vaping products is still growing, and menthol and mint flavours are still very popular with young people.
Regulatory bodies struggle to keep up and test the safety of products on time because conventional toxicity testing, which uses animals or living cells grown on a flat surface, can take weeks or months to produce high-quality and clinically relevant data.
There are additional drawbacks to conventional methods. Mice and rats, which are used primarily to test the safety and biological effects of aerosolised products, have nasal passages that are very different from those of humans, making it impossible for them to take an active breath through the mouth like a cigarette puff.
Additionally, continuous aerosols that don’t take into account human breathing patterns are either sprayed on cell systems used for toxicity testing or the systems are directly exposed to e-liquid on contact.
Researchers created a “vaping robot” with biological inspiration to help with preclinical testing of how combining vaping liquids and adding flavourings affect vapour composition and its health effects.
This machine can simulate the pattern of healthy and diseased breathing and accurately predict lung toxicity related to e-cigarettes by simulating the temperature, humidity, puff volume, and duration.
The system is capable of measuring the size and quantity of aerosolised particles produced, as well as how these parameters change depending on the liquid composition.
