E-cigarettes are advertised as a safer way to smoke. New research from San Diego’s VA Medical Center raises some questions about that claim.
VA researchers exposed human cells to the vapor extracted from two popular e-cigarette brands. The cells were exposed for a total of 24 to 48 hours over a period of 10 to 12 days.
The affected cells showed multiple forms of damage, regardless of whether the e-cigarette vapor contained nicotine.
Dr. Jessica Wang-Rodriguez, chief of pathology and laboratory medicine at San Diego’s VA Medical Center, was one of the researchers in the study. She said it’s hard to know exactly what in e-cigarettes caused the damage.
“I know some of them contain formaldehyde. I mean, that’s a known carcinogen," she explained. "But there may be some other things that are in there that we don’t really know about.”
E-cigarette makers are not required to disclose what ingredients are in their products. Wang-Rodriguez said more independent research is needed.
Her study is published in the January 2016 edition of the journal Oral Oncology.
