Enjoy the puff, without the harmful stuff. That’s how
electronic cigarettes have been marketed. But with little research on how
e-cigarettes and vaping can affect the human body, questions remain as to how
safe this rapidly growing “safer alternative” to smoking really is.
After hearing that traces of heavy metals have been found in
the vapor of e-cigarettes, College of Idaho biology professor Dr. Sara Heggland
and her INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence) lab decided to
investigate.
“There are no federal regulations on what they put in the
e-liquids,” Heggland said. “So it is kind of an open-ended, ‘what is this doing
to the body?’ ”
Part of the difficulty in performing the tests was deciding
which e-liquids to test because there are so many flavors and varieties. And
the fact that there is no standardization among e-liquids, and the liquid can
vary from brand to brand and even from bottle to bottle, added to that
difficulty.
The research team also wanted to figure out a way to vape
the e-liquid and collect the vapor in a liquid extract to treat the cells. So they
designed their very own vaping contraption in the lab with the help of C of I
biology professor Dr. Luke Daniels. And early results showed an interesting
pattern.
“We saw the flavored liquids had a more pronounced decrease
in cell viability than our non-flavored e-liquids,” Brown said about the
preliminary results. “But this is consistent with the findings of other
researchers.”
Extravagant flavors are one of the biggest differences
between tobacco cigarettes and their electronic cousins. Tobacco cigarettes
cannot be flavored with anything other than menthol, because flavoring has
proven to be an effective marketing strategy to target younger users. On the
other hand, the flavors for e-cigarettes range from cotton candy and bubble gum
to sweet melon and strawberrylicious. A 2012 report from the Centers for
Disease Control estimated that 1.78 million students in grades 6-12 had tried
e-cigarettes, though some states have legislation preventing the sale of
e-cigarettes to minors.
While conducting the tests, Heggland and Brown weren’t sure
if directly exposing bone cells to e-liquids would be of any relevance. But
after hearing that young children have been able to open the bottles and drink
them, resulting in nicotine poisoning, another dimension has been added to
their research, Heggland said.
And after observing that e-liquids do decrease a cell’s
ability to live, the next question for the lab is, “what is causing this
decrease in cell viability?” That’s a question Heggland and Brown will continue
to pursue as the school year goes on.
“I’m really excited,” Brown said. “There are a lot of
different avenues we can go down. Since the research [on e-cigs] is so limited,
there is a lot that we can figure out.”
For Brown, the chance to get hands-on experience as an
undergraduate was a major checklist item she had as she applied to colleges in
pursuit of her larger dream to go to medical school.
“I found participating in INBRE and participating in the lab
during the school year has been an amazing opportunity,” said Brown, who
started out in Heggland’s lab by learning cell culture techniques.
And while Heggland is excited about the addition of this new
project to her lab, she’s also enjoyed seeing Brown’s enthusiasm. After all,
seeing a student eagerly pursue their research is the biggest reward of
teaching, she said.
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