
E-cigs shut down hundreds of immune system genes, regular cigs don’t - edward
http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/02/e-cigs-shut-down-hundreds-of-immune-system-genes-regular-cigs-dont/
======
Balgair
If there are any HNers reading that would like to stop smoking, here is a link
to a good resource and community to start on that road:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/stopsmoking](https://www.reddit.com/r/stopsmoking)

I know it's not the best site, nor is the path to quitting an easy one, but it
is something. The thing that I see helps most is a daily reminder and a damn
good reason to stop (kids, new boyfriend, cancer, savings, etc). Find that,
and it is a bit easier to quit. God speed.

------
gospelwut
[https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2016/webprogram/Paper16208.html](https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2016/webprogram/Paper16208.html)

"[...] specifically focusing on cinnamon-flavored e-cigarettes containing the
flavoring agent cinnamaldehyde. Our data indicate that cinnamaldehyde-
containing e-liquids have a significant negative effect on epithelial cell
physiology and barrier function. In addition, cinnamaldehyde-containing
e-liquids compromise the immune function of key respiratory immune cells, such
as macrophages, Natural Killer Cells, and neutrophils. Using translational
human in vitro and in vivo approaches, our studies will ascertain whether
exposure to e-cigs, with a specific focus on cinnamon-flavored
e-liquids/e-cigs, have immune suppressive effects on the respiratory mucosa."

------
StavrosK
Man, smokers can't win, can they? I'm against smoking because it smells, makes
my eyes/throat hurt and is very, very annoying, even from a distance. E-cigs
aren't as annoying (they're only annoying if you blow smoke directly on my
face), so I don't have a problem with them.

If you want to vape, vape, I won't get involved, it's your personal choice.

~~~
berntb
Smokers could just google "home made snus".

Nicotine, no cancer, no smoke and no lung damage.

(It won't be sold in the EU, because of tobacco company lobbying.)

~~~
DanBC
> no cancer

Snus is linked to mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach and pancreas cancer. Also,
cancer of the penis.

------
wineisfine
Btw ecigs is big business. Costs nothing to produce, taxed as a regular
product... Affiliate fees up to 40% commission etc

Philip Morris bought a big ecig producer etc...

~~~
givinguflac
They bought a "big" and extremely shitty company, to sell at gas stations
everywhere so people will go back to cigs. The Ecig products they sell are
just awful.

------
GordonS
From the article, it seems it's the flavourings that are added to e-cig liquid
that seem to be causing the problem.

Presumably the effect would be the same if the same flavourings were added to
'real' cigs, but, with the exception of menthol, that isn't commonly done.

Why are flavourings so popular with e-cig? Does the liquid (glycerin?) have a
foul taste that they are trying to mask?

~~~
mml
I smoked for 20y, switched to ecigs to kick it. I treat ecigs as a medication,
no flavoring.

Having tried a few flavors, I find flavorless to be by far the least
offensive, to me, as well as the people around me.

I find this constant drumbeat of "ecigs will kill everyone" disingenuous at
best.

~~~
maxerickson
Why do you think the people stating that ecigs are still harmful are being
misleading?

~~~
mapt
It's as if we switched, in a culture of frequent duels, from dueling with
pistols to the death, to dueling with new, fairly safe boxing gloves to the
submission.

"But they cause concussions", you say. "But the children will be more likely
to take up dueling", you say. "We should ban them". "Look, we banned putting
stickers on guns long ago so they wouldn't appear to children, but they're
putting stickers on boxing gloves now! The horror!"

"But look, the problem is this obscene need to fight each other over honor.
It's a problem of the patriarchy. We should publish hundreds of studies
showing this while glancing furtively at the 'ban boxing' folks"

The death toll from smoking rivals the death toll from all the wars in the
20th century. Even after this was made clear, people found themselves unable
to quit, smoking until they die. The evidence suggests that e-cigs are
somewhere in the vicinity of coffee as a danger to your health. They are
incomparably safer, and if just one percent of e-cig users began using them in
order to quit smoking, that's worth it.

This study is completely uncontrolled, and being promoted as a hit piece.
"Environment influences gene expression" is not novel. If they want to impress
on me that there is anything of any importance whatsoever, they need to do the
same gene expression tests on groups who ate hummus vs who did not eat hummus,
groups who took a daily walk vs groups who did not, groups who drink tea vs
groups who did not.

~~~
givinguflac
THANK YOU! After actually reading any available data, I agree this study seems
deeply flawed and in no way controlled. Did the Ecig users smoke previously?
Does the gene suppression go away after a day? I highly doubt it's permanent.
Did they have Ecig users who were using no flavoring? What nicotine level?
What vg/pg ratio? Most importantly in my opinion, what type of device was used
and at what wattage etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly happy to see testing happening, but we need
to do it right and control ALL the variables.

Anecdotally, I was sick all the time when I smoked cigs. Switched to Ecig a
little over a year ago and I haven't had any illness beyond a normal upset
stomach every now and then.

~~~
mapt
The worst part is we _do_ need regulation and testing of this stuff for public
safety, but there's propaganda machines on both sides thrown into such high
gear we may never get it.

We need it because in a fly-by-night environment of small producers, there's
no accountability or detectability if some idiot decides that melamine makes a
good inert buffer material.

What we need is simple: Bonded, enforced labeling requirements. Safety could
be nearly a solved problem with an ingredient list showing me how many
milligrams of what precisely is going into the fluid (recipes left up to the
producer), a license for distributing this precise formulation with money held
as a security deposit, and an FDA mandate to randomly test one unit in every
thousand.

What we'll probably get instead is that some US corporate power with interests
in a fluid company will negotiate some deal that bans all their competitors
for being unsafe, and things will be made stable and expensive once more.

------
edcastro
I used to smoke 3 packs of cigarretes a day, some days I couldn't even
properly breathe. I tried everything, the only thing that got me out was
vaping. Nowadays I can't even touch a cigarrete anymore because it tastes like
crap.

From what I've seen so far, all of those studies always find the same thing,
diacetyl is bad for you when inhaled. This only applies to some flavors and
most of the "top" vaping juice vendors are aware of it and do not use juices
that have diacetyl on it anymore.

------
mirimir
Why not just deliver nicotine?

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Because smokers aren't nicotine addicts like heroin users are heroin addicts.

One of the big effects of nicotine is that it reinforces habit formation.
Smokers have a giant pile of situations where the unthinkingly obvious thing
to do is to pull out a cigarette and start smoking it. Reprogramming the brain
by replacing the action with "pull out an e-cig and start vaping" is much
easier to do than not having a thing to do. If you don't have something else
to replace the act with, you're probably going to do something like "think
about how much you want a cigarette"

~~~
mirimir
My underlying point, which I should have made explicit, was that adding all
those extra components to e-cigs was a risk. Arguably an unnecessary risk.
Except for marketing, of course.

Experimentally, it appears that GRAS by oral route doesn't necessarily mean
that vaping is safe. But that's not very surprising. Vaping does involve heat,
after all. Not burning, but perhaps high enough temperatures for components to
react and degrade.

Also, GRAS doesn't really mean "safe". It means that people have been using
something _forever_ , and it's not acutely toxic. So inertia and vested
interests win.

Vaping just glycerin and nicotine would arguably be a lot safer, no?

------
dimitar
From the abstract of the quoted paper:

 _Our data confirm that smoking cigarettes causes suppression of several key
immune genes in the nasal mucosa. E-cig users showed the same changes in
immune genes as cigarette smokers. However, e-cig users also demonstrated
suppression of several additional immune genes, suggesting even broader
suppressive effects on respiratory mucosal immune responses as compared to
cigarette smokers._

Looks to me that _E-cigs shut down hundreds of immune system genes—regular
cigs don’t_ is misleading.

~~~
dogma1138
Looks to me that smoking suppressed 53 genes vaping suppressed 358 that's
100's more indeed.

That said their test seems to be limited to ecigs with a specific flavoring
compound which replicates the taste of cinnamon; so it's not clear how many
types of flavored actually cause this effect.

~~~
hackercomplex
It sounds to me like this new product category (vaping) needs time to discover
the safest compounds to use for flavoring. In other words I suspect that the
researchers in this study don't think it's actually the nicoteen which is
causing this effect.

~~~
dogma1138
No they don't think it has to do with nicotine (not the discrepancy at least)
for this study they more or less focused on cinnamaldehyde which is the
compound that gives cinnamon it's flavor (it's also a known irritant and is
used to kill mold, fungus and some other things).

I would assume that they've focused on cinnamaldehyde because it's most likely
a common ingredient in e-liquid not only for the flavor but as it's an
irritant (watch the fools doing the "cinnamon challenge" on YouTube for a good
example of just how bad it can get) it's quite possibly been added to allot of
liquids to increase their throat hit especially for those liquids that are
aimed at recent former smokers that really look for that feeling to more
closely imitate cigarettes.

~~~
hackercomplex
[http://fuckcombustion.com/threads/steam-distilled-
essential-...](http://fuckcombustion.com/threads/steam-distilled-essential-
oil-turps.5189/)

According to what I've been reading vaporists in Colorado are experimenting in
this area attempting to isolate the best "turps".

"Terpenoids and cannabinoids are both secreted inside the Cannabis plants
glandular trichomes and they have a parent compound in common (geranyl
pyrophosphate). More than 100 terpenoids have been identified in Cannabis. The
most common and most studied include limonene, myrcene, alpha-pinene,
linalool, beta-caryophyllene, caryophyllene oxide, nerolidol and phytol.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that alpha-pinene is alerting, limonene is
sunshine-y, and beta-myrcene is sedating.

    
    
        Limonene (also found in lemon)
        Alpha-pinene (also found in pine needles)
        Beta-myrcene (also found in hops and mango)
        Linalool (also found in lavender)
        Beta-Caryophyllene (also found in pepper and Echinacea)
        Caryophyllene Oxide (also found in lemon balm)
        Nerolidol (also found in orange)
        Phytol (found in green tea)"

~~~
dogma1138
Well "Turps" is coming from Turpentine
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpentine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpentine)
they distill them in a very similar fashion alpha-pinene, nerolidol and beta-
caryophyllene are known to have some adverse health effects alpha-pinene is
especially nasty.

The problem isn't the synthesis there shouldn't be a difference in the effects
of a compounds such as aldehydes based on if you distill them or synthesize
them , if anything synthesized compounds have much higher purity levels than
distilled ones.

The problem is understanding the effects of individual compounds the
cumulative effect of multiple compounds (in any given combination and ratio)
as well as their long and short term effects.

Add to that added complexity of different delivery mechanisms not all
vaporizers are the same they operate on different principals, power levels and
use different materials.

All this can make accurate measurement very difficult and a very long term
project, this is now compounded by the fact that "vaping" is a multi-dollar
industry and behind it there is even a bigger industry which is the food
flavoring one which for a long time has enjoyed the "GRAS" classification of
it's products which barely holds water at the common ways of ingestion and
amounts and most likely will utterly fall apart if you look at it too deeply.

There's also some insane negative feedback from the vaping community it self
calling it a conspiracy funded by big tobacco (which is funny considering that
big tobacco owns all the big ecig brands).

I always stated before that vaping is most likely "safer" especially on short
term than smoking 1-2 packs a day, but I always suspected that it can be just
as bad if not worse due to completely different mechanisms.

If you vape for say 6-12 months just to help yourself quit smoking it's
probably "worth" the risk, if you going to end up chugging 30ml of juice a day
you are not going to enjoy the results.

Heck even if you breath water vapor all day it won't be good for you, there is
no way in hell that breathing in "hot" vapor can be good, may types of cancer
especially throat and mouth cancer have been connected just to that the intake
of hot or warm air rather than the actual chemical compounds in it. But people
are keep buying some crazy 200 watt's ecigs and sucking on them like it's
their mum's tit when you are spending 200W of energy it has to go some where
at least some of that energy is deposited into the soft tissue of your mouth,
throat and lungs and that can't be good no matter what else is in there.

~~~
hackercomplex
> Heck even if you breath water vapor all day it won't be good for you, there
> is no way in hell that breathing in "hot" vapor can be good

Is the vapor really any warmer than body temp when it goes into your lungs
though ? I just conducted an experiment where I took a puff of a vaporizer but
kept the vapour in my mouth, then I probed with my index finger and honestly
the air temp felt about the same as it does without the vapour.

Also I wonder if vaping a pack a day while living in the a prestine wilderness
setting would be more safe than breathing regular air all day in a large metro
with auto air pollution. I suppose it probably depends what flavors are in
your liquid, and which city.

Then there's the question of whether or not it's safe to be nicoteen in the
first place. The way I look at it sugar and coffee are probably equally bad if
not worse for the body, but I haven't looked at it in depth

~~~
dogma1138
I can't really comment on your anecdotal experiment because well it wasn't
exactly done under controlled conditions and while i appreciate the level of
accuracy you assign to your index finger i'm not quite sure how accurate it is
really :)

And yes we already live in the world with 1000's of environmental risk factors
that may cause or increase the likelihood of contracting cancer, the first of
which is probably the fact that if we survive trough our early 20's we are
expected to live another 60-70 years instead of 30 or so 2000 years ago.

But if you really think that regardless of flavor or composition vaping is
some how smoking with no consequences you are only fooling yourself.

Vaping should be looked as a tool that can enable you to quit smoking more
easily not as a leisure activity or a life style choice.

After all nicotine it self is indirectly linked to cancer since it seems to
mess with the natural mechanisms that prevent cancer in cells.

As far as overall health goes I would suggest to stick to the low powered ecig
pens and not dragging around one of those car battery powered human smoke
machine monsters that I've seen quite a few folks walking about with lately
(which are probably the reason that ecigs are being banned everywhere now, a
vape-pen produces like no visible vapor; whilst those big power bricks can be
used to conceal military maneuvers), as they operate at a fraction of the
power and also limit the consumption of eliquid, them being also much more
unpleasant to use than the higher end stuff should also have some effect on
the frequency of use.

~~~
hackercomplex
well I certainly didn't mean to imply that you were full of hot air. :) and
although I agree with you about nicotine but I'm personally more interested in
the idea of consuming medicinal plant oils this way as a form of relaxation
therapy because it would seem that cannabis prohibition is rapidly
evapourating in the United States. I suspect it'll be a lot more difficult for
scientists to find any medical evidence that this form of vaping is harmful,
that is once they're finally able to conduct research into it.

One problem with conducting this kind of science however is that different
varieties of cannabis have different profiles of cannabnoids and turpentines,
so what science would really need first is a way to determine what genetics
are what. This is why I'm so excited about the work that is being done to
track the genetics.. here is a fascinating interview with a leading scientist
about this if you're interested:

[https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/episode-73-distributed...](https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/episode-73-distributed-
consensus-on-cannabis-genetics)

When it comes to aesthetics though I think we're on the same page about those
portable smoke monstrosities.

------
jacquesm
Better still, don't smoke either.

~~~
spdionis
I don't think this is constructive.

Smoking is awesome. If only we could find a way to do it without the health
problems.

~~~
giancarlostoro
I've never smoked cigarettes but cigars I have. They make so many claims about
how addictive nicotine is, and yet cigars are supposed to have so much more
nicotine than cigarettes, here I am a year without smoking a cigar (maybe I've
had one or two in the past year, if anything) and I'm probably not going
through what a cigarette smoker goes through, and I've gone times where I've
had a cigar daily. Winston Churchill smoked daily and lived to be around 90.
So I'm not an "expert" but a lot of what they say doesn't add up with what
I've lived and it seems others have lived. Cigarettes aren't pure tobacco
usually anyway, they're full of "tobacco sheets", just like Coca Cola isn't as
full of sugar as it is "Corn Syrup." My uncle on the other hand smokes daily
for quite a few years, and I never see him have the same symptoms other
cigarette smokers usually do. The trick is probably the fact we don't inhale
the cigar smoke into our lungs, enough of the smoke will get in there
regardless.

~~~
spdionis
In my opinion he addiction doesn't come from nicotine but from the act itself
which is very relaxing and pleasant.

Btw even if you don't inhale I understand that nicotine gets in your system
anyway. Probably in smaller quantities, which is offset by the high amount of
nicotine in cigar/pipe tobacco.

~~~
anexprogrammer
The psychological aspects are habit forming; the social aspects, the ritual
etc.

Whilst nicotine is undoubtedly addictive, there are other things in tobacco /
cigarettes that seem far more addictive. There's also the additional crap
added, like chemicals to ensure the cigarette doesn't go out like hand rolled
and cigars do, etc.

The part I missed most whilst quitting, with the aid of vaping (nicotine
replacement gums, patches and inhalers were a waste of time and money for me)
was something present in tobacco, but not in ecigs. Vaping never quite
replaced that, or felt as nice. The occasional cig I had when out drinking
with friends made it quite tempting to relapse - though I didn't.

The nicotine withdrawal when I quit vaping was so minor compared to the
withdrawal from stopping tobacco that I actually wonder if the various
quitting aids are replacing the wrong chemical(s).

I am, of course, just an anecdotal data point of one.

~~~
cronjobber
I'm currently witnessing an e-cig based quitting attempt that confirms your
story. Just as in your experience, gums and patches tried earlier had been a
total waste; and likewise, unlimited nicotine on demand does not seem to
capture the full addictive content of cigarette smoking.

