The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not regulate e-cigarettes like it does conventional tobacco products. However, it has warned of possible health risks. So far, though, evidence is limited on what exactly e-cigarettes contain and whether those chemicals are safe, particularly in terms of cancer.
“There haven’t been many good lab studies on the effects of these products on actual human cells,” said Jessica Wang-Rodriguez, one of the researchers, in a news release.
In this latest study, the researchers created an extract from the vapor of two popular brands of e-cigarettes. They then used the extract to treat human cells in Petri dishes. Compared with untreated cells, the treated cells were more likely to show DNA damage and die.
The exposed cells showed several forms of damage, including DNA strand breaks. The familiar double helix that makes up DNA has two long strands of molecules that intertwine; when one or both of these strands break apart and the cellular repair process doesn’t work right, the stage is set for cancer.
In fact, the affected cells were more likely to launch into apoptosis and necrosis, which lead to cell death.
“There have been many studies showing that nicotine can damage cells,” said Wang-Rodriguez. “But we found that other variables can do damage as well. It’s not that the nicotine is completely innocent in the mix, but it looks like the amount of nicotine that the cells are exposed to by e-cigarettes is not sufficient by itself to cause these changes. There must be other components in the e-cigarettes that are doing this damage. So we may be identifying other carcinogenic components that are previously undescribed.”
The findings reveal the importance of regulation for these e-cigarettes. More specifically, it shows the compounds in these electronic cigarettes may be just as harmful as regular cigarettes.