New York University Medical School team reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on July 7 that they exposed 40 experimental mice to nicotine-containing vapor for 54 consecutive weeks, resulting in 9 (22.5%) developing lung cancer. In addition, 23 of them (57.5%) had bladder hyperplasia and increased the risk of cancer.
Although the team clearly stated in its report that traditional cigarettes are still the biggest killers of health, the experiment is not yet sure whether electronic cigarette poses a hazard to the human body. Electronic cigarette may be harmful or harmless to the human body. The public should not equate the risk of electronic cigarette with that of traditional cigarette. But whether electronic cigarettes are carcinogenic or not still attracts wide attention of smokers.
In response to public doubts about whether electronic cigarette is carcinogenic, the American Cancer Society (ACS) also expressed a clear attitude on its official website: scientists are still studying the possible health hazards of long-term use of electronic cigarette. Importantly, the content of carcinogenic chemicals in electronic cigarette is much lower than that in cigarette smoke.
“The study found that the harm of using electronic cigarettes to adults was significantly lower than that of ordinary cigarettes. Cigarette burning produces more than 7,000 chemicals, of which at least 70 are clear carcinogens, and electronic cigarettes do not have this problem. “We encourage people to switch from traditional cigarettes to electronic cigarettes,” the American Cancer Society further noted in its response.
David Abrams, also a professor of public health at New York University, sees e-cigarettes as the biggest public health improvement opportunity in 120 years, “if all American smokers switch to e-cigarettes. It will save at least 7 million lives.” David Abrams pointed out in an interview with CBS.
In interviews, David Abrams repeatedly said that there is strong scientific evidence that nicotine is an addictive substance, but not carcinogenic, and that harmful components in electronic cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than traditional cigarettes. At the same time, he believes that the problem of illness in electronic cigarettes purchased through legal and formal channels has never been found, so vape smokers need not panic, please continue to use them.
The aforementioned electronic cigarette carcinogenic experiment of the research team of New York University Medical College has also aroused controversy in China. An expert who is engaged in the safety research of electronic cigarette, unwilling to be named, said that the direct carcinogenic factor was nitrosamine, not nicotine itself. Some electronic cigarette enterprises have very strict limits on nitrosamines in vapor.
“It’s not rigorous to talk about toxicity without any dose.” The expert said. According to the Yangtze Evening News, Jiangsu CDC demonstrated the harm of traditional cigarette to mice during a cigarette-free day in 2016. The experimenter extracted the poison from a cigarette, dissolved it in distilled water in the test tube, and injected the solution into a mouse. Within three minutes, the mice fell to the ground. It was shaking and died of convulsions in its limbs.
A foreign researcher once made an animal experiment about smoking “second-hand smoke” of cigarettes: put three vivacious mice in a relatively sealed box of about 0.17 cubic meters, and then pour the smoke of three ignited cigarettes into the box. Within 10 minutes, all the mice died.
In an experiment conducted by the team of researchers at New York University Medical College, the amount of smoke exposed to the mice in 54 weeks was equivalent to the amount of electronic cigarette regularly smoked by adults for 3 to 6 years, which led to the conclusion that electronic cigarette could cause “bladder hyperplasia and increase the risk of cancer” in the mice. In reality, it is impossible to have such a high concentration of smoke, and no one will be in the smoke for such a long time.
In fact, at the end of the paper, the research team emphasized that the data from the experimental model only indicated that the problem was worth further study.
