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Yeah, but did they get high?

Bro. It’s a buzz, not high

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They are evolving! In 2 or 3 decades they will mutate, and their Offsprings will not be able to survive without a juul a day. They will be good workers on space stations. Belta Loada, Bossmeng.

>The health consequences of vaping are not known. Our results show that inhalation of the vapor generated by a popular brand of e-cigarette causes widespread changes inside the lungs, data that further highlight that these products are not inert.

Basically, we still have no clue how bad it is, we just know it's better than regular cigarettes.

Do these changes occur with cigarette smoke as well? Or is it unique to vaping?

And is it unique to vaping a Juul if so? why was this the device they chose to use for the study anyway? Aren't those illegal now or something?

what they should be doing is testing all the fake knockoffs from China because those are the ones the kids are getting.

I grew up with parents who smoked cigarettes. They changed to vapes like as soon as they came out. Before all the kids even had any.

My mom used to fill a paper plate with discharge from her lungs every morning.

She hasn’t done 1 time since vaping.

Yes, you’re still putting smoke and stimulants (and more) in your lungs, but it’s SO MUCH BETTER than real cigarettes. I’ve seen it first hand.

> why was this the device they chose to use for the study anyway?

Without looking, I’m guessing they just went with the popular choice that everyone is aware of.

> Aren't those illegal now or something?

No

> what they should be doing is testing all the fake knockoffs from China because those are the ones the kids are getting.

You’re trying to shift the focus. They chose a popular brand. The study isn’t just looking at the effects on children. Those ones would be a follow up study.

Yes I'm trying to shift the focus to the fact that we need to control what's being sold to be put into youth's bodies. I don't think that's so far off subject.

also this is why I thought Juul was illegal now, I remember seeing this, And I guess I thought more came from it:

> The FDA temporarily banned Juul products in June 2022 because the company failed to provide enough evidence that its products were “appropriate for the protection of public health.” The e-cigarette company has also been accused of fueling the teen vaping crisis by using marketing and advertising tactics to appeal to a younger audience.

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I'm gonna feel real dumb if I quit vaping for no reason.

What the FDA did is irrelevant. Read the first word of the title.

> Yes I'm trying to shift the focus to the fact that we need to control what's being sold to be put into youth's bodies. I don't think that's so far off subject.

Don’t shift it from seeing if the overall practice has health issues to just focus on what specific products have issues. That can come separately.

Some interesting things to note. This study uses the original JUUL pods (59 mg/mL nicotine) which are not being manufactured any more. The newer JUUL2 pods have 18 mg/mL nicotine. I wonder if this might change things.

Additionally, they did not control for flavourings vs nicotine; They used normal air, 30:70 vegetable glycerin:PG, and JUUL mango. It would be interesting to to see a control with just nicotine and no flavourings. And also changes to the lungs for different flavours.

We know more than that.

Since only three ingredients are required to make e-juice, it's a hell of a lot easier to do research on than the thousands of chemicals found in a tobacco plant.

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In this case Juul— vape brand doesn’t necessarily matter. The brand itself was probably chosen based on popularity. Solutions contained are largely homogeneous save ratios.

Generally speaking, the vape juice is broadly going to be a mix of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin, with the %10 percent dedicated to nicotine, flavoring, dye. Nic salt is combining nicotine with an acid to produce a salt better absorbed by the body (juul, common throwaway vapes).

That’s not enough evidence in my opinion. Dogs cant eat chocolate, humans can with no worries whatsoever. What happens to an animal can hint what could happen to a human but not all cases translate along those lines.

As long as it’s healthier than cigs (so far seems like it contains far less carcinogens and other toxic chemicals usually contained within cigarettes) its the lesser of two evils. I’m not an advocate for either (i use e-cigs myself, not a good habit) but if my kid got addicted for whatever reason I would want them to choose the lesser of two evils.

Also for the record, I don’t think ya’ll understand how horribly kids are using these products. They are taking a hit like a breath of fresh air every minute or so. I’ll have a few hits every few hours, maybe even longer intervals. It adds up and makes a considerable difference. No sense of moderation for these kids whatsoever.

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Is there any stimulus that wouldn’t change gene and protein expression? It’s a fundamental way our bodies respond to changes in the environment.

"generally" doesn't interest me, personally. "generally" anything I can buy at a store with money, is reasonably safe for use.

it's the wierd off-brands coming from suspicious places, containing unknown chemicals, that I think are worth looking into more, in addition to the overall study.

Doesn't changing the air we breathe like city air to deep forest lead to pulmonary changes? Doesn't any change in what we put in our bodies cause a change?

Plus additives that are put in to make it burn how it does.

>Basically, we still have no clue how bad it is, we just know it's better than regular cigarettes.

We don't even know that, if we're considering the long term effects.

>We don't even know that, if we're considering the long term effects.

You are correct....but WE DO know cigarettes cause cancer amung many other problems.

It can't get much worst, and so far we have no clue if it even does that.

>It can't get much worst

Since we have no truly long-term studies, I would resist saying that, especially since the cited study suggests alterations to gene levels.

We know what it's made of.....

It's mostly vegetable glycerine which is in most of your food already and perfectly safe for consumption.
We just have never studied the nicotine effects on lungs without all the smoke damage and the saturation of glycerine through the organ tissue.

Vaping is still unhealthy. But it is factually magnitudes better than actual cigarettes that contain,

checks notes*

Litteral Rat Poison.

>> The puff regime was 1 puff per minute with a 78 ml puff volume, 2.4 s puff duration, with three hours between exposure sessions. These puff topography and usage parameters are consistent with human use patterns.

The median weight of a C57BL/6J mouse is approximately 25 grams. The median weight of an adult human is very roughly 75,000 grams. A 59mg/mL nicotine concentration used as above is approximately 3000 times the human dose when adjusted for body weight. And about 6000 times the human dose when adjusted for total lung capacity. Even without nicotine the volume used is problematic for generating uncontrolled-for differences in both duration and degree of hypoxia.

Lung anatomy and function in mice generates interesting questions as to the appropriate adjustments needed for use in modeling human respiratory systems:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC184039/

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This is true, but consider that your quality of life is better with vapes. In other words, smoking leads to death, and you will have all kinds of issues all the way there. Even if vaping leads to death, you will feel and smell a lot better in the meantime. People shouldn't use vapes if they've never smoked. However, smokers should absolutely switch to vaping.

I was responding to your question why they chose Juul — it’s a popular brand that uses a juice composition pretty standard to the industry. The benefit of this choice being that any findings may be broadly applicable to vaping (as a practice).

Yeah they said the system was supposed to simulate 3 years worth of vaping for a human but I find that comparison highly dubious. High dose short-term can’t be directly converted to short dose long-term I believe. I don’t work with mice however so correct me if I’m wrong.

I dont feel like reading the article, but you are indeed correct. The headline is utterly sensational and conveys absolutely no information.

that's fair. thanks for letting me know.

How long is enough long to do proper research on the effects of a product use? I switched from normal cigarettes to vaping 7 years ago and I would like to participate in a meaningful research as to discover effects of vaping. I am so sick and tired of these kind of non-concerete researches and their vague findings, if you call this a finding at all. As many said in this post, any change in the environment where you breath air causes protein levels to change in lungs

The roughly 3 years equivalency came from dividing the length of the treatment period by the median lifespan of the mice. 4 weeks / 25 months. So 0.04 x median lifespan of a human (rounding to 80 years) = 3.2 years.

For the sake of argument let’s agree that 4 weeks = 3 years is a good enough mouse-equivalency to define a chronic (long-term) span of time.

The other factors should also have been adjusted to mouse-equivalencies to avoid conducting a study with no relevance to human activity. Especially factors related to lung size and function.

Otherwise all that the study could study was extreme high-dosing and/or hypoxia in mice. With absolutely no application to even extremist human use patterns over any time frame.

What happens when exposed mice to cigarettes ?

So deathsticks that replace the air in your lungs with smoke is dangerous? Incredible.

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Thank goodness regular smokes are harmless.

Just FYI in the US they can't sell JUUL2, but we can still buy 5% (59mg/mL) and 3% JUUL pods for the original device.

Huh, in Ireland where I’m originally from they can’t sell JUUL products at all. Wonder why.

When they first became popular I thought: These things are gonna be in class action lawsuit commercials in 20 years. Did you or a loved one use Juul, you are entitled to compensation

I would suggest to mice that the don't volunteer for science experiments and that they definitely don't smoke.

… We have no idea how the e juices (which are not uniform in themselves) decompose when heated by these devices that provide varying levels of heat intensity and exposure.

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I mean still breathing in those more than cigarettes, not that those are better, isn’t good. People suck on the juuls for hours out of habit but smoke a cigarette and are done.

We have no idea how the components of e-juice (which are not uniform) decompose especially given there are so many different devices that provide different levels of heat intensity and exposure. It’s simply more accurate to say we have no idea of the long term effects of vaping with no provision as to cigarettes. We know cigarettes are bad for your health so you’re welcome to take a gamble on vaping but we really don’t know yet.

Do we know it’s better than regular cigarettes? Can you point me to a study that came to that conclusion please?

Because the tobacco company doesn't want them around.

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Same thing they did in a discredited study a few years back that supposedly proved vaping causes popcorn lung.

In mice, at human levels of intake

I've managed to convince myself at this point that every test they've done was at some crazy high temperatures or other unrealistic scenarios. The likely reality is it's probably just certain additives or cheap materials in wicks that get used that is going to be the real culprit, not necessarily just "vaping".

Vaping is worse than smoking. It’ll come out. Just wait.

Regardless of studies, does anyone actually believe that habitually inhaling plumes of atomized oils and chemicals won't be harmful to their health?

I’m a biochemist so this is a serious question…how does it impact gene levels? Is it referring to gene expression levels? Forgive me but I haven’t read the full publication.

Yeah they are focused on the juice & nicotine but the hardware used just slips by

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Aren't the studies with mice supposed to be done before the humans ingest it?

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This pair of cog stiences hard.

I also noticed that the it mentions "changes" then leaps to "damage" without significant explanation of the "changes" much less substantiating how those changes equal "damage." Just the fact that they are studying a name brand device rather than controlling for or isolating the delivery device, glycerine, flavors, or PGP also seems more like hatchet job than actual science.

I don't eat meat or dairy I get my protein in my lungs from vaping.

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Hey water is in all your.foods and healthy.

Water in your lungs in a big no no. Please stop saying stuff like it is made sth natural that is everywhere.

If you take sth natural process it and then introduce where it is not supposed to be there are going to be problems

You are a bit unfair. Most studies start like that and they are careful. This clearly a pilot study to see an effect and get more grants down the line.

They give high dosage to see easily and udoubtly an effect before proceeding with more careful dosaging where the effect might be negible. If you can't see an effect or a very negative effect at a huge dosage then there is no pint continuing.

They are probably at the stage where they need to set up an experimental model, I mean they don't even if their mice ingest properly the fumes. They don't know which would be the appropriate controls.

This is a typical pilot study for me with some results that show a effect with the intention to ask for more funding later now that they have shown;

1. An effect that needs better understand and further analysis.
2. that their experimenal model works
3. that they have prior experience with this type of treatments.

I cannot stress how important the last one is. Setting up a new experimental model with a new type of treatment in mice is very hard. Overcoming the small problems and having it rdy to work is a half the job.

Noone will read this and think, hey ledt do policy changes. They know it, the reader knows it. What they did propably was to set up a model that was sure to work to work out the kinks and get more money later for more detailed studies.

With limited money and the push to publish all the experiments as positive results this is what you get. But everyone knows and no one bases all their policy changes one one paper.

E-cigarettes are not under the same restrictions as drugs. Just like you wouldn’t have to do a mouse study if you opened a brewery.

There are still those who think criticism of Wakefield’s work was unfair. He needed to show a significant effect in order to secure more resources. And those resources were needed to conduct more studies which also needed to show significant effects so that more resources could be secured for future studies.

Wakefield falsified data, this is fraud completely different thing. You can't compare it with a random study, that has it faults, but is not fraudulent. It would completely different if we knew they changed their numbers.

Also in his case multiple other studies couldn't find an effect, but he insists he was right.

Critisism is different than rejecting the whole idea of the study.The authors are careful and don't make huge claims, this is why the title is general. They push for more studies in the field and this is OK.

Wakefield thinks his studies were correct, despite evidence to the contrary, and he tried to profit from his fraudulent studies. Completely different things. Please don't compare

No, I very much doubt anybody believes that.

The question people are asking is exactly how harmful is it?

Coffee is harmful, so is bleach.

With more insight, people could make more informed decisions. As it stands, the general consensus around consumers seems to be that it isn't particularly harmful, you can continue to vape and that it is unlikely to have a negative impact on your health.

The professional opinion seems to be, we don't really know if it will cause any harm, or what type of harm it may cause. Although we are fairly certain it is healthier than smoking tobacco, so if it helps you stop that then crack on.

Claims to be a biochemist.. doesn't bother to read the thing they are questioning.

Sure buddy

... propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, and nicotine are the only three required ingredients, all of which have decades of research that can be used to generalize their risk upon the lungs.

Also, the vast majority of flavors are FDA approved and many of them have had extensive research done on them, especially those that are used in cooking, frying, etc. There are unknowns, but that doesn't mean we can't quantify the long-term risks. Some of the earliest research accurately predicting the danger of tobacco, for example, were the result of relatively brief experiments on animals in the lab.

Don't get me wrong, there are unknowns. At least some unscrupulous vendors are adding novel ingredients to their e-juice, and some of those are bound to have risks. If the FDA was as worried with consumer protection as they are in handing the industry to the tobacco companies, I'd have been able to provide a better answer than I did.

They don't decompose they vaporize, that's the whole point

You are inhaling what the juice is made of

Also most scientific evidence I've seen points to this being correct. (in the sense vaping has a great potential of being a lot safer if you account for what goes into the solution / e-liquid)

Wakefield may have falsified data and conclusions but some people believe it was a good thing and any criticism was unfair. Wakefield needed a large effect in order to secure more resources for more studies which needed large effects in order to secure more resources in order to conduct more studies. Since Wakefield’s study was not identical in every aspect to this study some people believe they the two studies cannot be compared. Some people are of the opinion that Wakefield’s study can only be compared to Wakefield’s study and no other study because no other study is identical in every aspect to the Wakefield study. Some people may argue that the conclusions of the Wakefield paper were real and sound and important and wouldn’t effect public policy even though the data behind them was questionable. Who would disagree with the need for Wakefield to raise more money for more studies with a conclusion which some people believe is real and sound and important even though the data behind the conclusion was the result of activities which did not generate data which supported the conclusion.

Well he falsified data, he didn't see any real effects stop with strawman arguments.

What he did was fraud period. You can't compare it

Well nictotine on its own will ruin your sexual function with time fwiw

Some people believe that even though the data was fraudulently falsified it wasn’t strawman fraudulent because it allowed for a real effect which was not real but was real so more money could be raised for more studies which also needed fraudulent effects which weren’t fraudulent but were real and not real but were real so that more money could be raised for more studies which can and can’t and can be compared to this study which is not identical to Wakefield’s study in even aspect. You are very much correct in that the data was falsified which led to false conclusions.

OK whatever, some people believe also that the earth is flat.

We don't cater to them our whole policy and existence

Exactly. The two studies use data to generate false conclusions but are not comparable because they are not identical in every aspect but both have comparable made up effects which is not real but is real so that more money can be raised to conduct more studies which won’t impact policy because Wakefield’s conclusions only use false data to generate a large enough false conclusions to raise more funds for more studies with false conclusions and shouldn’t be criticized but should be criticized because we shouldn’t cater to them on policy or existence as you correctly point out.

Not exsclty and we agree to disagree. They are not comparable.

People can disagree without being disagreeable. Which is in comparison to much discourse which is also not comparable for obviously comparable but not commensurate reasons.

So is this damage from the juice being vaped normally or were they just running the device indiscriminately past normal values at which point a human would say "this is burning"?

Usually these tests use unrealistic variables that don't mimic actual use. Undoubtedly vaping isn't "healthy", but I feel as if this study is over exaggerating the complications.

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