New Haven - Yale researchers have found in a study that one in four high school pupils who use electronic cigarettes are inhaling vapours produced by dripping e-liquids directly on to heating coils, instead of inhaling from the e-cigarette mouthpiece, possibly increasing exposure to toxins and nicotine.
This form of e-cigarette use is known as “dripping”.
It produces thicker clouds of vapour and a stronger hit in the back of the throat when inhaled, according to the study, published online in the journal Pediatrics.
Applying the liquid directly to the battery-powered coil heats it at a higher temperature than inhaling from a cartridge or tank, possibly increasing exposure to harmful chemicals like formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acrolein in the vapours.
The Yale study recommends regulators consider imposing restrictions so e-cigarettes cannot be modified for uses like dripping.
“One of the concerns I have is when you are looking at the safety and risk of e-cigarettes, one really has to look at the risks of alternative uses also,” said Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, professor of psychiatry at Yale and first author of the study.
“What we are discovering with our work with youth is that kids are actually using these electronic products for other behaviours, not just for vaping e-liquids from cartridges or tanks.”
Krishnan-Sarin said people who used e-cigarettes tended to puff on them throughout the day and that researchers didn’t know the short and long-term consequences of exposing lungs to the vapours.
“Everybody assumes vaping is a safer way (than cigarettes) of administering nicotine, but we know so little about the risks of vaping.”