The alarmist work on the toxicity of the electronic cigarette does not reproduce the real conditions of vaping. New measuring devices are gradually coming out of the labs and will no doubt soon make it clearer.
Vapoter protects the deleterious effects of the "classic" cigarette ? According to the tobacco expert Bertrand Dautzenberg, « its emissions may contain desired potentially toxic products - such as nicotine - but also unwanted ». The specialist calls for a better measure of their potentially harmful effects. Disturbing studies of their effects on human health have been published in 2016 and 2017. The inhaled aerosol would be deleterious to the cells of the mouth and lung, harmful to pregnant women and fetuses, etc. It would contain alarming levels of dangerous products, such as formaldehyde (volatile form of formalin), a carcinogen and respiratory toxicant that forms during the heating of the liquid. Or acrolein, toxic respiratory and cardiovascular released by the pyrolysis of glycerol used as a humectant. Two products also present in tobacco smoke.
The toxicity of electronic cigarettes is much lower than that of tobacco
But other studies immediately came to counter the first. « In fact, the most alarmist studies fail to reproduce the real conditions of the vape: it is a little as if the researchers measured the equivalent of the emissions of a Cocotte-Minute ... but forgetting to put the water in », says the cardiologist Konstantinos Farsalinos, from the University of Patras (Greece) who peeled them all to prepare the e-cigarette congress held in La Rochelle on 2 December 2016. No one is vaping in these conditions! « When vapers overheat the liquid, it produces a pungent and unpleasant taste, which they avoid doing », Explain Peter Hajek, a specialist in smoking at the London School of Medicine (UK). New measuring devices are gradually emerging from private and public laboratories and will undoubtedly provide a clearer view in a few months.
In addition, major improvements have been made to the composition of liquids which is now better regulated, while in 2012 « it was the Wild West, with a lot of hard to apprehend products on the market! », recognize Rémi Parola, coordinator of the Interprofessional Federation of the Vape Industry (Fivape). The standards further ensure the safety and health of vapers, be it vials, liquids, corks or the purity of nicotine. The certification of Afnor thus proscribes diacetyl, an artificial aroma of carcinogenic butter that appeared in some of the first products.
In the end, regardless of the parameters studied (particles, carcinogens, compounds, etc.), the toxicity of electronic cigarettes, although not innocuous, is much lower than that of tobacco.
Source : Sciencesetavenir.fr/
