2024-03-21 22:38:54
Flavorings in e-cigarettes must be banned as quickly as possible. This is what German pulmonologists demand. The latest study data is alarming.
Flavorings are widely used in the food industry and are considered harmless there. They are also popular as a flavor in electronic vaporizers – but highly controversial. How these flavors behave when heated, what reactions they enter into with other components of the liquids and how the ingredients of the e-cigarette vapor affect the lungs, blood vessels, heart and other organs of the body have so far been largely unexplored.
Lung doctors call for a ban on flavors in e-cigarettes
Now new study data suggests that flavorings in e-cigarettes are so harmful that they need to be “banned as quickly as possible.” This is what pulmonologists from the German Society for Pulmonology and Respiratory Medicine (DGP) demand.
Researchers at the Institute for Therapy and Health Research in Kiel (IFT-Nord for short) examined flavors in e-cigarettes. Their result: The aromatic substances make it easier to start smoking, increase the addictive potential and can also significantly increase the absorption of toxic substances through deeper inhalation. “These flavors have significant potential for harm and must be removed from the market as quickly as possible,” says Professor Wolfram Windisch, President of the DGP, in a press release.
E-cigarettes are now the most frequently consumed nicotine-containing product among children and adolescents, even ahead of tobacco cigarettes and water pipes. “We know that e-cigarette users have a three times higher risk of smoking tobacco cigarettes later on. So with e-cigarettes we are raising a new generation of nicotine addicts among teenagers and young people,” says Dr. Alexander Rupp from the DGP working group on tobacco prevention and cessation.
Increasing consumption among young people
Among 14 to 17 year olds, the use of e-cigarettes increased fivefold from 2021 to 2022. More than one in three – 37.5 percent to be precise – in this age group had already used e-cigarettes in 2023.
The number of adult e-cigarette users in Germany was recently estimated at more than two million. At the same time, around 50,000 people in Germany develop lung cancer every year. One of the main causes: smoking.
New studies show addiction and consumption-promoting effects
“Flavours have so far played a subordinate role when assessing e-cigarettes for health. However, the results of our analysis of several hundred scientific papers show that flavors do play an important role,” explains Professor Reiner Hanewinkel, head of IFT-Nord .
“Flavours reduce the urge to cough. They therefore make it easier to start smoking and also have a consumption-promoting effect, especially for young people,” says Hanewinkel.
Further toxicological studies are missing
What the research group’s analysis also shows: There are studies for individual flavors that demonstrate harmful health effects – at least in animals. Some examples:
- In animal experiments, menthol, for example, leads to an enlargement of the liver and spleen and to cystic changes in the cerebellum.
- Vanilla suppresses natural defense processes in the body.
- Cinnamon and tobacco aroma lead to hypersensitivity of the respiratory tract.
- Various flavors such as butter, vanilla or cinnamon trigger inflammatory reactions and DNA damage.
But so far only very few of the numerous aromatic substances have been investigated. “We have an enormous black box of substances in e-cigarettes, of which we don’t yet know how they affect the respiratory tract and how they interact with each other,” points out guideline author Alexander Rupp. What makes matters worse is that, supported by public advertising, the flavors are perceived as attractive and harmless – especially by younger people.
40 percent could be weaned
That is why the German Society for Pneumology and Respiratory Medicine now sees an urgent need for action in dealing with flavors in e-cigarettes. “Politicians must deal even more with the fact that smoking and vaping are extremely harmful to health – including the use of e-cigarettes, which is trivialized by the tempting aromas. We must do everything we can to reduce the spread and advertising. And we have to provide sufficient information so that those affected can stop smoking again,” demands DGP President Windisch, chief physician of the lung clinic at the Cologne city clinics.