Tag Archive: “vaping”

Ideas for Useful Vapor Studies

Posted in science by Adam

31 January 2015

Some ideas of studies that could actually be useful in vaping, rather than simply looking at formaldehyde repeatedly and incorrectly.

We’ve seen some useless studies come down, but what are some useful studies that scientists could do to inform the public better about vaping?

Fine details on nicotine absorption

This will likely take a series of studies to gather enough data over various levels of vaping, but the gist is how do various vape parameters alter nicotine absorption rates?

Examples of the parameters involved include wattage/vapor density, technique of inhale/exhale (e.g., steal vaping versus cloud chasing versus “regular” vaping), and length of puffing session.

Unknown parameters might include modifications by ambient temperature, food, drink, circadian rhythm/oral mucus membrane’s biocycle, etc.

Also, how much does the same vaping regimen vary nicotine absorption between individuals? Are some subjects naturally more efficient at vapor-nicotine absorption than others?

Just-noticable Difference (JND) of nicotine levels

If a vaper uses a 12mg concentration, can they tell if they try an 11mg or 13mg? Does the JND vary with vapor density or other parameters above (it likely does with some)?

Understanding the JND may help with vapers that wish to lower or discontinue their vapor use. If they can step down at the right rate, it may improve their success.

It may also help manufacturers decide how to optimize their products. E.g., if an atomizer has a “hot start” feature that can increase vapor density for the first vapes of the day, it may help smokers that are reliant on that first cigarette but otherwise vape. If they can tell a smoker something like, “studies have shown that this increase in vapor density is equal to increasing the nicotine solution by x%,” it could help the vaper make a more informed choice about how to use the product to overcome their “first cigarette” issue.

It could also be used to innovate a dual-tank design where one tank is nicotine-free. If the user receives nicotine vapor for the first several puffs of a session, and the device then switches to the virgin liquid, is the session still satisfying?

Innovations in detecting nicotine absorption levels

Is there an easy-to-use proxy measure for measuring blood serum levels of nicotine? For example, can heart rate or blood pressure measures be sufficiently correlated to get a robust measure without blood draw? Such a finding could significantly improve the variety of studies done, as they would be simpler to design and conduct.

Investigations of dehydration

How much of an issue is dehydration? Can it be alleviated through using higher-density vapor with higher nicotine levels? Lower-density with higher levels? At this time the issues of dehydration appear to be anecdotal with no formal investigations. Are some individuals more vulnerable to the effect? Is it even a real effect (i.e., does vaping actually lower body hydration)?

These issues may not seem as profound as detecting formaldehyde, but each of them could positively help both public health and the vaping marketplace improve. For example, the FDA might require dehydration warnings on vaping products if the concern is great enough. But lacking evidence, the FDA apparently ignores that potential hazard entirely in their proposed rules.

Proper hydration is a real issue not just in daily health, but long-term avoidance of organ stone formation among other problems. It deserves to be given at least a cursory study if vaping is to be regulated.

Scientific Misunderstanding in Vaping Science

Posted in society by Adam

24 January 2015

Another scientific analysis of vaping showed that scientific analyses of vaping continue to be insufficiently informed on the subject matter. What gives?

A letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Hidden Formaldehyde in E-Cigarette Aerosols”, discusses an analysis on the production of formaldehyde from heating ecig liquids. And once again we have a scientific analysis that is based on a misunderstanding of the investigated system.

Their analysis showed high levels of formaldehyde production, but that finding directly resulted from overheating a tank system that was not designed for the test conditions. The authors were unaware of the constraints of the tested device, and they marched on believing that real people would use the device according to their test protocol.

These are likely very intelligent people, so how can they get it so wrong? They know a bit about chemistry and measurement and so on. But they failed to study the knowledge base they were working in. Not for a lack of its availability, what with the widespread information in the vaping community. For a lack of recognition that there is information they lacked.

They see a very simple system: fill with liquid, push a button, inhale. So we can measure what is inhaled. Oh, it has a dial that changes the voltage. We can see what they inhale at different voltages. Just as you can mismatch a light fixture with bulbs that fit but are not rated for the use, you can misuse ecigs.

There are other scientists doing meaningful work in this area. At the very least, these scientists could have consulted with those, agreed on protocols, and we could be on our way to having replicated results much sooner. Instead we have another dud of an investigation into formaldehyde in vaping, and we await the real results.

Formaldehyde is a known risk of vaping (one of the few), but an entirely avoidable risk as well. But we need the fine details of how much is produced under which conditions to know just how much effort is needed to eliminate the risk, and we do not have that data yet. And scientific misunderstanding, not knowing what they don’t know, muddies the water for safer products.

The other side of this debacle is that as these errors get repeated it hopefully raises scientific awareness of them. Future studies will focus more correctly on the real questions around vaping, and we will get our answers. It may take more time and money than necessary, but science tends to work like that. Indeed, I would not be surprised to see another half-dozen of these sorts of broken studies performed before the community-at-large clues in that this isn’t valuable information for science.

For a vaper it is a valuable lesson when they learn it themselves, in that they will tend to recreate the failed experiment and find it unpleasant and lower their power. The basis of a good vape is just enough heat and wicking to deliver a high-density vapor. Too much heat, an unvapable puff of formaldehyde. Too little heat, nothing to vape. Too much wicking, a gurgling, leaking pain-in-the-ass vape. Too little wicking, an unvapable puff of formaldehyde.

Vapers will naturally avoid all those conditions (or give up). The question for science is how big the margins are. How much formaldehyde can coincide with a good vape? And how do we eliminate it?

The Teetotaler’s Mentality

Posted in society by Adam

13 September 2014

Asking why vaping has so many opponents when it’s so innocuous.

Vapers that keep up see bans all the time. Not just regular public indoor bans, but apartment bans and outdoor bans. It offends the liberty-minded vapers, but it confounds even the average liberal. Why do they go after vaping? Lacking any good basis, the tendency is to resort to conspiracy theories. Big Pharma and taxes are popular bogeymen. Or a liberal agenda trying to turn the world into a combination of Disney and 1984.

As I’ve talked about before, some in the public health community have a gross fetish for stomping on smokers, and many in the public have joined that cause. The mass paranoia that we live with today, where a whiff of tobacco smoke may set off a Goldbergian reaction that ends with the offendee dead, their children’s dentures embedded in their spine, while the little creeps sing MMMBop and play pingpong with their eyeballs. Point is, people don’t just hate smokers, they’re scared of smoke, too.

Public opinion has had so much poison crammed into the notion of smoking that anything close might just rub off. The notion of vaping as smoking is popular (even among some ex-smokers). There’s still addiction to nicotine and the behavior. There’s still inhalation and exhalation of a nebulous, semi-opaque cloud of chemicals (in the pejorative sense of the word). And the fear, the paranoia is that in some years scientists will discover that vapers have just been putting cigarettes inside of metal and plastic enclosures and smoking them. That’s really what these people are on about. Full stop.

Some literally believe vaping is smoking. Others believe that we will one day find out that it has long-term hazards just as great. And still others may believe that sticking feathers up their butt would make them into chickens. But vaporizing a liquid is different than burning a solid. It ain’t water vapor, but it is a vapor (a vapor of mostly polyols and diols (glycerol and propylene glycol, respectively)).

But fear is pernicious. It can cause the mind to lash out at things unrelated, at scapegoats. Vaping is a popular one today, because—facts check out—the anti-smoking movement has been a failure in many ways. It has been a failure of policy, of lawmaking, of compassion, of sense, from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city. Success is not merely an ends game, which the anti-smoking (really anti-tobacco and in some ways anti-nicotine) movement hasn’t succeeded in either, but as the saying goes, ‘it’s how you play.’

And the strategies and tactics have just been lousy. Not that the tobacco companies were cooperative, not that the politicians were humble, etc., but the movement as a whole hasn’t met the standards of a modern society. Its only saving grace has been science, what little science has been done compared to the money spent on pet projects and shoring up deficets due to lack of courage to raise the taxes.

The science of smoking and the public knowledge of it, fear of it, has had some success. But the science has always been overshadowed by the teetotaler’s mentality. This idea that abstinence is king, and we must all bow. We must all find it in our hearts to become masochists, to deny every vice that we have defined as vice (and yet to indulge the thousand others we have not yet defined as vice).

The teetotaler’s mentality is that holding a party with water and no beer is still a sin. Bingo is still gambling. Minced oaths are still curses. That veggie burgers are still murder. Contraception is abortion. And that vaping is still smoking.

They are zero tolerance, abstinence-only fiends. And they sometimes get the political ear to worry out a lame law. I still hold that in a decade a good many vaping bans will get reversed. But for now they keep coming. For now, the fearblind teetotalers have to change their diapers every time you vape.

But vaping is not smoking and no amount of agitprop will make vaping numbers drop off to levels where science won’t prove them much safer over the years. The teetotalers will find themselves prone on this issue, and many of these bans will get repealed as truth wears and tears at their jerking knees until they are stiff and arthritic.