Vaping has grown into its own niche in just five years, not just as a cigarette alternative, but as a healthy alternative lifestyle for former smokers. Unfortunately, its popularity among smokers has yet to reach the general population, and the debate over its safety has not died down.
The problem is further complicated by the fact that some companies, especially Big Tobacco, are introducing a new alternative to traditional vaping technology. HNB, the process of heating a HEETs is similar to how a vape works.
You might think that only anti-vapers would judge these products as similar to vaping, but the truth is that due to the lack of necessary evidence, both sides have their own arguments. Therefore, Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos decided to look at the actual effects of vaping products, HNB on humans in a recent study.
New research
Professor Farsalinos’ team set out to measure carbon emissions from a number of devices, including PMI’s IQOS, e-cigarettes, and Marlboro Red cigarettes. They tested both regular and mint versions of the devices, and used wattages ranging from 10 to 14 watts. After testing, they collected vapor and smoke samples that contained two to four dinitrophenylhydrazines.
After testing the devices and recording the concentrations of toxic substances emitted from the smoke, they realized that there was a very clear figure. IQOS devices emit 91.6% less toxic substances than cigarette smoke. These figures also include other substances such as acetaldehyde (84.9%), acrolein (90.6%), propionaldehyde (89%).
So it can be concluded that 20 IQOS cigarettes contain less carbonyl concentration than 20 regular cigarettes at about 81.7% - 97.9%. But the most important thing for vapers is the results when experimenting with vape products.
Vape and IQOS
Dr. Farsalinos’s research may indeed be good news for new devices like HNB, and further evidence that vaping and HNB are not the same thing. When the researchers looked at the concentrations of toxic chemicals in e-cigarette smoke, the results were surprisingly similar to those when comparing regular cigarettes and HNB.
According to the study, the ratio of toxic substances in e-cigarettes is 5-13 times lower than HNB. This range is even lower than other substances. The concentration of Acrolein is 35 times lower, other substances even reach numbers as low as 96 times. They did not detect any part of the two substances propionaldehyde or crotonaldehyde. The ratio of carbonyl compared to cigarettes is even as low as 92.2% and 99.8%. It can be said that this study further confirms the accuracy of the previous research from PHE, which stated that e-cigarettes are 95% less toxic than regular cigarettes.
Dr. Farsalinos' full research paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/add.14365
