Many people have turned to electronic cigarettes in hopes of avoiding the heart and cancer risks associated with smoking conventional tobacco products. But vaping appears far from benign, a trio of toxicologists reported February 11 and 12 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.
If used as a means to totally wean people off of tobacco products, then e-cigarettes might have value, concedes Ilona Jaspers of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But she’s not sure. Unpublished data that she and the others presented at the meeting link e-cig products to a host of new risks. So vaping may not eliminate risks associated with conventional smoking, Jaspers maintains — “and may actually be introducing new ones.”
Her group examined scraped cells from the noses of otherwise healthy people who had a history of smoking, vaping or doing neither. The researchers then measured the activity levels in these cells of 594 genes associated with the body’s ability to fight infections. Among smokers, the activity of 53 genes was substantially diminished, compared with people who neither smoked nor vaped. Among vapers, those same 53 genes showed significantly diminished activity, Jaspers reported, as did 305 more.
The normal role of these genes would suggest that the lung tissue as well as nasal tissue of smokers — and especially vapers — “may be more susceptible to any kind of infection.”
To test that possibility, Jaspers’ team collected immune cells from healthy human volunteers, then exposed them to flavored liquids used in e-cigarettes. Tested cells included blood neutrophils and lung macrophages, both normally tasked with gobbling up and killing bacteria. Some of the liquids proved disturbingly effective at suppressing the ability of those immune cells to do their job, Jaspers reported… Read More>>
Source: Science News
