Chemicals in vapes could be highly toxic when heated, research finds | AI analysis of 180 vape flavors finds that products contain 127 ‘acutely toxic’ chemicals, 153 ‘health hazards’ and 225 ‘irritants’
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/08/chemicals-in-vapes-could-be-highly-toxic-when-heated-research-finds
19 Comments
From the article: Chemicals used to produce vapes could be acutely toxic when heated and inhaled, according to [research](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-59619-x).
Vaping devices heat the liquid flavouring to high temperatures to form an aerosol that is then inhaled. They contain chemicals including vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, nicotine and flavourings, blended in various amounts.
Previous experiments have shown that some fruit-flavoured vapes – such as strawberry, melon and blueberry – produce dangerous compounds called volatile carbonyls due to this heating process.
These compounds are known to have health implications for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cardiovascular disease and cancers.
With so many chemicals used in tens of thousands of different vape products, conducting experiments to test every brand and flavour for toxicity could take decades of research.
Instead, the study used AI to analyse the chemical composition of 180 vape flavours and simulate how they decompose when heated. The research, published in Scientific Reports, predicted that vapes produce 127 “acutely toxic” chemicals, 153 “health hazards” and 225 “irritants”.
Nearly every flavour put through the AI predictor showed at least one product that was classified as a health hazard, with many predicting several. The toxins were associated with vapes containing no nicotine, as well as those with.
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They used ai!! it must be right!!!
It’s a guess from an LLM I would hardly call this research.
I am guessing the AI just looked at their MSDS’s? Or did it look for research paper on those chemicals ?
Not a new revalation. Anything other than clean air isn’t good for you.
I’ve always said that the flavors were my biggest concern. Vaped for over 10 years, mixed my own for most of that time, and went flavorless the last half, just used vegitable glycerine and concentrated nicotine cut to my desired strength. I finally quit last year.
I supppse it’s irrelevant whether this is produced by AI or not. There still remain risks with vaping generally
sUrPrIsE!
the robot god says so…
but i mean, i smoked cigarettes for years. I live in a city and breathe the polluted air, and toxic aerosols every day. I swim in water that has been polluted by industrial activity for over 100 years now.
hell the damn orcas and seals do as well. So really its a matter of scale and cost benefit analysis.
if i inhale a vape and expose myself to one or 2 hazardous things. that’s nothing compared to the tobacco, and i. pretty accepting that lifestyle and life events beyond my control create the circumstances that wont lead me to some long life into the realm of adult diapers and progressive cognitive dysfunction, leading to less and less capacity to even care for myself.
im cool dying before all that. Don’t weep for me please.
They’ve been around long enough to see people getting sick. I’m sure they’re not good for you, but I don’t see people getting sick from them. Until cigarettes are gone, we should not make vape products harder to buy than tobacco.
Ironically once again proving that cannabis is the better choice. What are you getting in a cannabis vape. No flavors no nothing Just extract and a heating element.
Now yes obviously still inhaling anything that’s not oxygen can be inherently bad to some degree but I said better choice not best choice
Welcome to corporate anarchy where governments and big corporations regulate themselves. Where it is legal to lit dangerous chemicals anywhere they please for more profit.
Who would’ve thought it’s bad to suck things other than air into your lungs?
This paper does not make any sense, there is no reason for it to even exist. We must be in a period where anything with “AI” gets published. There’s no validation of this method, the actual research should be to test whether these predictions are true. The paper even talks about this, but for some reason it is dressed up as research into vaping, again probably because it is a hot topic.
Maybe I missed it when looking at the article, but what temperature do they mean when they said heated to a high temperature? Do they nean normal temperatures that would occur when vaping, or much higher temperatures to burn the crap out of everything? I have seen previous articles where they burned the crap out of the vape and reported all the toxic chemicals produced. However, no one is going to vape when it is burning, it tastes absolutely horrible when the juice runs low and it starts to burn even a little.
Also, the article claims that the vape flavors are added to specifically target children, which is a silly argument. I guess flavored vodka and rum bottles with cartoon pirates on the bottle are also done to target children too, right?
Or maybe, just maybe, adults prefer sweet flavors more than an artificial tobacco flavor or menthol.
So much deflection going on, if you want to damage your lungs this article isn’t stopping you.
Does this apply equally to cannabis pens?
tHaT’S whY I OnLY sMokE CiGareTtes.