Smoking e-cigarettes as an alternative to smoking tobacco to keep the tar away may not be such a good idea after all. It has come to light that e-cigarette vapours contain a significant amount of toxic metals, which can be dangerous.
According to a study conducted by at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, significant amounts of toxic metals, including lead, leaking from e-cigarette heating coils and are present in the aerosols inhaled by users.
In the study, the scientists examined e-cigarette devices owned by a sample of 56 users. They found that significant numbers of the devices generated aerosols with potentially unsafe levels of lead, chromium, manganese and/or nickel.
Chronic inhalation of these metals has been linked to lung, liver, immune, cardiovascular and brain damage, and even cancers.
“It’s important for the FDA, the e-cigarette companies and vapers themselves to know that these heating coils, as currently made, seem to be leaking toxic metals – which then get into the aerosols that vapers inhale,” Ana María Rule, told New Atlas.
E-cigarettes typically use a battery-supplied electric current that passes through a metal coil to heat nicotine-containing “e-liquids,” creating an aerosol—a mix including vaporized e-liquid and tiny liquid droplets. Vaping, the practice of inhaling this aerosol as if it were cigarette smoke, is now popular especially among teens, young adults and former smokers.
