E-cigarettes cause indoor air pollution and inflammation, German study shows

Use of electronic cigarettes increases fine particle air pollution and levels of potentially carcinogenic compounds in people who use them, shows a small study designed to replicate their use in typical indoor environments.1 The findings show that e-cigarettes should be regulated and carry warnings of potential health effects, the German authors said.

The researchers, who included scientists from the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority, measured concentrations of compounds emitted by e-cigarettes in nine healthy volunteers who took part in six “vaping” sessions each two hours long in a well ventilated room. Each volunteer vaped nicotine free e-cigarettes for three sessions and e-cigarettes that contained nicotine for a further three sessions.

“Despite the recent popularity of e-cigarettes only limited data is available on their safety for both users and secondhand smokers,” warned the researchers.

To find out more they analysed the effects of e-cigarette use on levels of a wide range of pollutants in the air and monitored release of exhaled nitric oxide, which is established as a measure of airway inflammation, and also measured urinary metabolites from the participants.

Their results showed that the concentration of putative carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in indoor air rose by 20% to 147 ng/m³ during vaping sessions. And levels of aluminium more than doubled, rising 2.4-fold. The amount of particulate matter was markedly higher during vaping sessions than at control times.

Exhaled nitric oxide increased slightly but significantly (P=0.03) in seven of the nine study participants after using nicotine containing e-cigarettes.

“Our data confirm that e-cigarettes are not emission free and their pollutants could be of health concern for users and secondhand smokers,” said the researchers.

“In view of consumer safety, e-cigarettes and nicotine liquids should be officially regulated and labelled with appropriate warnings of potential health effects, particularly of toxicity risk in children,” they concluded.