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E-cigarettes are more harmful than previously thought
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
According to information voiced by scientists from Johns Hopkins University, there are many unstudied chemical components in e-cigarette liquids, including chemicals of industrial origin. This is the first work in which specialists tried to identify chemicals contained in aerosols and determine possible risks for smokers. The results were more than alarming, because the unknown components discovered can lead to the most unpredictable health consequences.
Many studies have been conducted previously to compare electronic and traditional cigarettes: indeed, vapes were slightly better in this regard, as they contained less polluting resins. However, little attention was paid to the fact that liquids for electronic analogues contain a lot of unstudied components that pose unknown and unpredictable health risks. In their new work, scientists tried to evaluate the entire list of chemical composition in both vapor liquids and aerosols.
The team used a chemical fingerprinting technique called liquid chromatography and high-resolution mass spectrometry. This technology has previously been used to assess the chemical composition of wastewater, biological fluids, and food products. The researchers tested four of the most common vaping products, including JUUL, Blu, Mi-salt, and Vuse.
As a result, several thousand unidentified components and their compounds were identified, as well as substances that are usually formed during combustion, although they should not be present during the formation of steam. Traditional cigarettes, however, contain similar condensed toxic hydrocarbons.
“One of the supposed advantages of vaping is that the device operates at a relatively low temperature, which does not involve combustion. This should make it safer than regular smoking,” explained co-author of the experiment, Dr. Mina Tehrani, a representative of the School of Public Health. However, the experts found more than two thousand unknown chemicals, identified six potentially dangerous components. The scientists were surprised to find caffeine stimulants in the aerosols, which could only be present in liquids containing coffee and chocolate flavors, but were found in half of the products studied.
The researchers note that electronic cigarettes are not as harmless as they might seem. "Users should be aware of what mixture of chemicals gets into their respiratory system. At the same time, we do not even know what components we are talking about in the vast majority of cases," said one of the study's leaders, Dr. Karsten Prasse. It is possible that electronic smoking is no less evil than traditional cigarettes.
The results of the study were published on the Chemical Research in Toxicology page.