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Medicine Science

Vaping Can Damage Vital Immune System Cells, Researchers Find (bbc.co.uk) 137

Vaping can damage vital immune system cells and may be more harmful than previously thought, a study suggests. Researchers found e-cigarette vapour disabled important immune cells in the lung and boosted inflammation. From a report: The researchers "caution against the widely held opinion that e-cigarettes are safe." However, Public Health England advises they are much less harmful than smoking and people should not hesitate to use them as an aid to giving up cigarettes. The small experimental study, led by Prof David Thickett, at the University of Birmingham, is published online in the journal Thorax. Previous studies have focused on the chemical composition of e-cigarette liquid before it is vaped. In this study, the researchers devised a mechanical procedure to mimic vaping in the laboratory, using lung tissue samples provided by eight non-smokers. They found vapour caused inflammation and impaired the activity of alveolar macrophages, cells that remove potentially damaging dust particles, bacteria and allergens.
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Vaping Can Damage Vital Immune System Cells, Researchers Find

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  • Give us a damn break
    • Re: Cmon life (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'm sure smoke does the same thing. It is also hot and contains contaminants.

      When will the media learn that "safer than smoking" is not saying it is completely safe and stop conflating the two?

      • Re: Cmon life (Score:4, Informative)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 ) <me@@@brandywinehundred...org> on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @05:21PM (#57126794) Journal

        A lot of vapors seem to think it's "completely safe", and the ways that it isn't completely safe are not understood.

        I never assumed it was, and tell people it's a lot safer. I assume that inhaling 400 (f) air is likely to cause subtle harm. I'm also not certain that a coating of oily solvent type stuff is good for the lungs.

        Still, I smell better, save massive amounts of money, am likely healthier, and have cut my nicotine consumption by about 90%, I assume I'll be quit in a few more months and save even more money.

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by hwihyw ( 4763935 )

      Life Rule 1) Everything good for you is unpleasurable, everything bad for you is pleasurable.
      Life Rule 2) See rule 1.

    • Vaping is still dramatically, dramatically better than smoking. If you have to choose between those two, then choose vaping every time. Even the summary itself says:

      Public Health England advises they are much less harmful than smoking

      • I can attest that since I switched back to a dry herb vaporizer, my weed supply has been lasting much longer. I think it has already saved me at least 1 $100 ounce from the nearest dispensary.

        I still enjoy smoking a bowl occasionally of course, but I mostly vape it. Just holding out until my plant I have growing out in the back yard buds...

  • by snapsnap ( 5451726 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @04:33PM (#57126524)

    so is this the fault of PG in the liquid?

    • so is this the fault of PG in the liquid?

      Likely from running their test vaping rig at extremes of coil temperature, wattage, and draw-times that no normal person would normally experience. I suspect that most of these types of studies look at the specs for a given device such as "coil wattage 30 to 65 watts, maximum recommended draw time 5 seconds" (which nobody would do as it would be horrible) and set their test rig for 65 watts at 5 seconds.

      Vaping is not good for anyone. I wouldn't advise anyone take it up that is not a tobacco smoker. However

  • oh did they? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kwirl ( 877607 ) <kwirlkarphys@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @04:34PM (#57126532)
    What vaping devices did they test? What materials were the coils built of? What type of cotton was used? Was it a VG or PG mix? I mean I realize that they ran these tests for 48 whole hours, but really, who pays for this garbage to get published? a 48 hour research study is about as reliable as using flatulence to measure climate change.
    • +1 insightful

      And what temperature? And what it temperature controlled or just "dumb." I am no expert in that field, but it seems with just preliminary researching that there are probably many, many factors involved. Coming to any conclusion will require knowing those factors and how they interplay and holding them constant for many different tests.

    • Who cares? I'd say that vaping is obviously NOT better than just breathing clean air. But as far as nicotine delivery systems go, it's certainly healthier than cigarettes and way more fun than gum or patches or whatever. But I have to say that vaping, as a nicotine delivery system, has actually been helping me lose weight by providing me with a sugar-free way to enjoy a sweet flavored treat and suppressing my appetite.

      My own health has been far more impacted by the ready availability of way too much sugar,

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Who cares?

        Maybe you should.

        If you had a choice between vaping that harmed you and vaping that didn't, you would pick the harm-free one, right? So research that pinpoints the thing doing the harm and leads to the development of less harmful vaping is a good thing.

        • That is a very good point and one that occurred to me as I was hitting the pipe this morning. If one reads the study, it's pretty clear what kind of device and juice they used. Unflavored 50/50 VG/PG with 36mg nic and the most popular device in the UK (something from Kanger) with fully charged batteries and clean atomizers. It's a pretty "clean" test of a general type vape. So while it might be worth trying variants to see if there can be safer vapes, I was responding more to the skeptical idea that this wa
    • These details are in the paper [bmj.com]. In particular, they did not test any device but just exposure to the chemicals which they note may not provide the same levels seen by actual people who vape. I think it's unreasonable to expect this level of detail in a popular news site given that they are writing a few paragraphs for a general audience. The paper is there for those who want this level of detail.

      Also, somewhat ironically, cow flatulence [theguardian.com] actually is important for determining climate change!
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Cow Farts contribute tons of methane into the atmosphere. https://www.popsci.com/cow-far... [popsci.com] The other side sez: https://www.agweb.com/article/... [agweb.com]
    • it's the wild wild west right now. You don't really know what you're getting when it comes to vaping.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      You don't understand how these studies work.

      What makes more sense: throw a large amount of money at a full scale, long study with multiple variables just to find out if there is anything there, or do a cheaper limited study that will tell you if it's worth investigating further?

      Obviously the answer is the former, you throw resources at the problem until you are sure no armchair biochemists on random tech news sites will be able to mock the size of your study.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    They're at it in blatantly obvious ways ever since e-cigs became popular. Somebody cut into their mass-murder profits! Oh noes! (Yes, it is deliberate and willful mass-murder.)

    Yeah, nicotine smoke is not the best thing. Neither is alcohol, caffeine, sugar/starch, saturated fat, salt, city air, all that shit in cosmetics and industry "food", etc, etc, etc.
    We use them anyway, because what's the point of having a life if you're not living any? You can live a 100 years physically, but only 10 mentally. And you

    • by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      Patches and gum are still better nicotine delivery systems for breaking the addiction. However, people who don't want to break the addiction because they like nicotine (or at least think they do) want a small, fast-acting dosing system that can be measured to match the situation at hand. For this niche, vaping is much better than smoking. Setting plants on fire and inhaling the smoke is always going to be a horribly impure and inefficient way to dose. Vaping doesn't have to be zero-risk to still be an impro

  • FUD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YouGotTobeKidding ( 2884685 ) on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @05:41PM (#57126878)
    Im sorry but this is pure FUD. From the study... they didnt use a vaporizer. They took healthy cells and BATHED it in a PG/VG + nic solution (aka ejuice). Sorry but that is not a legit way of study. Vapers dont snort ejuice. They vaporize it. Inhale the vapor and EXHALE. Usually in short 2-3 second bursts.

    Bath healthy cells in water and there will be damage too.

    All for science and finding out how to make vaping safer... but FFS study it and do legit science. Not paid for shilling.
    • Oh and just for shits and giggles... they used nic concentration of 31mg (the legal levels for sale are low 20mg lelves at most and most vapers use 3-6mg. Im down to 1.5mg and thinking on going lower). The LD50 of pure nic is 50mg. Gee I wonder if you use a concentration NO ONE would vape the results may be skewed.
    • by valles ( 2826761 )
      With these studies, I think they're trying to keep cigarette smokers buying packs of cigarettes.

      The last paper popular paper on this subject tested using hours of continuous exposure, and this study doesn't clearly state the dosing duration.
      36 mg/ml is much higher than what is typically carried in stores. It's hard to find anyone local who sells 12mg/ml.

      Since this study seems like they're submerging the tissue in liquid, why isn't there a comparison with submersion in water?
      I know when I'm i
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Can you explain precisely why their methodology is invalid? It doesn't seem unreasonable to use a higher than normal level of exposure to make some predictions about what long term lower level exposure might do.

      The prediction might not be entirely accurate, but it does suggest that further research is warranted.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Can you explain precisely why their methodology is invalid? It doesn't seem unreasonable to use a higher than normal level of exposure to make some predictions about what long term lower level exposure might do.

        The prediction might not be entirely accurate, but it does suggest that further research is warranted.

        If somebody decided to study the harmfulness of alcohol solely through the administration of massive ethanol enemas, you would be equally happy with their results and just as ready to defend them via this "just asking questions" shit that's become so popular recently amongst american fucking cunts.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        It doesn't seem unreasonable to use a higher than normal level of exposure to make some predictions about what long term lower level exposure might do.

        Either you are being willfully ignorant, or woefully so. Blasting someone with 8Sv of radiation does not accurately simulate the same dosage spread out over 40 years. Submersion in water for 70 minutes does not reflect a lifetime spent living in humid conditions.

        The prediction might not be entirely accurate,

        The study provides no acceptable reason to extend it the courtesy of 'possibly accurate.'

        but it does suggest that further research is warranted.

        And when do we actually get this further, more accurate research, instead of yet another study using blatantly bs methods? Or are we to be content never ques

    • by dwpro ( 520418 )
      No, it appears they did both:

      Objective: We compared the effect of unvaped ECL to e-cigarette vapour condensate (ECVC) on alveolar macrophage (AM) function.

      ...

      Conclusions: ECVC is significantly more toxic to AMs than non-vaped ECL.

  • They are significantly safer than cigarettes. All else is people wittingly or not in service to big tobacco trying to get the competition expensively regulated or outlawed.

    "Which would be sweet!" said B. T. "Let's get scientists who wanna make a name cluelessly working on our behalf".

    "With any luck, anyone who points this out will get downmodded by another clueless helper!"

  • Inhaling smoke into your breathing apparatus.

    Of course that isn't safe. It can be various degrees of unhealthy, and some ways are faster and more damaging than others, but obviously that isn't healthy.

    The question is how unhealthy, not if.

  • Were they using normal cheap gas station flavored juice or pure unflavored juice? If flavored, then what flavor(s)?

    It seems generally the worst part is the [undefined] stuff in the flavoring.

  • I'd like to see scientific research because I don't really believe anyone died from it. It seems to me that the cigarette has a worse effect on the body than VAPE. I think that all agree with this.
  • I came to this Article expecting. "But the study is wrong, I blame Big Tobacco! it's a conspiracy!".
    I found it.

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