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Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by tristanj on Monday June 12, 2017 @03:14PM (#14540138)
The makeup of e-cigarette vapor is different than the what's in the liquid. When vaping, the e-cigarette coil heats up to 300°C and breaks compounds in the liquid (such as propylene glycol) into new compounds such as propylene oxide, acetaldehyde, and formaldehyde. Researchers found that aerosols generated by e-cigarettes contain up to 31 compounds, some of which are known carcinogens.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b01741

Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by kostarelo on Monday June 12, 2017 @03:31PM (#14540278)
Wow, didn't know that. So, when the article says that "There are potentially hundreds of chemicals in e-cigarettes..." they are actually referring to compounds that are being generated after vaping?
Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by tristanj on Monday June 12, 2017 @04:32PM (#14540857)
I believe so, but he could also be referring to how there are hundreds of different flavors (each containing different compounds), and each compound interacts differently when heated by coils.
Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by droopyEyelids on Monday June 12, 2017 @04:49PM (#14541001)
Thats the huge asterisk.

A successful vaporization requires temperatures of 150-200°C with a max of 250 for self-experimenting enthusiasts.

So when these studies include the chemicals caused by pyrolysis, they're not studying realistic e-cigarette use.

A good analogy would be studying the consumption of improperly distilled alcohol that included methanol- EXCEPT you wouldn't be able to taste the methanol in bad liquor, and you'd absolutely be able to taste burnt e-liquid.

Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by nylonstrung on Monday June 12, 2017 @05:29PM (#14541280)
I'd still have to imagine that the acetaldehyde and formaldehyde intake is a small fraction of what the average persona already ingests in the form of alcohol.

Which of course doesn't mean it is good for us but I think establishes that the danger from that is probably less scary than that sounds

Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by bryondowd on Monday June 12, 2017 @03:33PM (#14540304)
My understanding is that this is a bit of a false alarm, because most devices target 150C, which is just enough to vaporize the PG, but not oxidize it, not 300C where things get ugly. So, with reasonable safety measures in place, this shouldn't be an issue.
Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by tristanj on Monday June 12, 2017 @04:17PM (#14540718)
The study I citied measured compounds produced by on-the-market e-cigarettes, specifically the EGO CE4 and Kanger Aerotank Mini.

While I'm not sure what temperature these devices target, what I know is that the researchers found that longer into a usage session the coils became hotter and produced larger quantities carcinogens.

My understanding though is that while e-cigarettes do produce carcinogens, they produce less quantities than regular cigarettes do.

Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by throw_away on Monday June 12, 2017 @06:33PM (#14541661)
Reading a lot of these studies, I get the feel that the researchers aren't really users of the devices, nor have they really consulted any real users of the devices. It's akin to someone who had never seen how a car works being surprised that they are capable of going over 100 MPH. Sure, they can, but usually people don't drive them around that fast. The same goes for e-cigarettes. Sure, if you max out the voltage, keep the coil red hot and dry out the wick you're going to get some bad stuff, but no real user would inhale much of this (at least not more than once) because it would taste terrible.
Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by posterboy on Monday June 12, 2017 @05:42PM (#14541366)
> most

I guess you had the link to the survey ready and just forgot to paste it. Would you find that again, please?

Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by scott_s on Monday June 12, 2017 @03:38PM (#14540347)
I also think it's significant that the liquid is vaporized. Certainly it's quite different to smoke tobacco than to eat it.
Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by throw_away on Monday June 12, 2017 @06:35PM (#14541670)
Vaporization is a physical state change, whereas combustion (and digestion) is a chemical change.
Re:E-cigarettes ‘Potentially as Harmful as Tobacco Cigarettes’ by scott_s on Tuesday June 13, 2017 @09:30AM (#14544553)
As tristanj pointed out elsewhere in the thread, studies have shown that chemical changes are happening. See the study tristanj linked, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b01741