The University of Louisville received a $3.6 million grant from the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health to study potentially harmful chemicals found in e-cigarettes. Researchers will examine a variety of vaping flavors to determine possible short-term and long-term health impacts. “What we do know is that certain flavors are definitely toxic,” said Alex Carll, associate professor at UdeL and co-leader of the project. With so many flavors on the market, researchers aim to find out which chemicals produce adverse effects. on the body, especially the heart. To identify the risks of each, the researchers will test a variety of flavor combinations on mice and monitor their heart rates, simulating the way people inhale vapor from an e-cigarette. They will then test individual chemicals on cardiomyocytes, the cells that make up heart muscle. From there, researchers will examine the data to determine the short- and long-term health effects of certain chemicals over time. at least on the toxicity of individual flavoring chemicals,” Carll said. The study is funded until 2027, but Carll said researchers are already seeing early results.” We found that menthol is likely to induce cardiac arrhythmias, at least we find that in mice,” he said. “It seems to increase heart rate more than tobacco flavored e-liquids.” Full results are expected in five years. Carll hopes the results can help agencies like the FDA make informed decisions about the health effects of vaping flavors. He said the data could be used to determine which chemicals should be regulated or potentially banned.
The University of Louisville received a $3.6 million grant from the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health to study potentially harmful chemicals found in e-cigarettes.
Researchers will examine a variety of vaping flavors to determine possible short- and long-term health impacts.
“What we do know is that certain flavors are definitely toxic,” said Alex Carll, associate professor at UofL and co-lead of the project.
With so many flavors on the market, researchers are looking to find out which chemicals produce adverse effects on the body, especially the heart.
To identify the risks of each, the researchers will test a variety of flavor combinations on mice and monitor their heart rates, simulating the way people inhale vapor from an e-cigarette. They will then test individual chemicals on cardiomyocytes, the cells that make up heart muscle. From there, the researchers will examine the data to determine the short- and long-term health effects of certain chemicals over time.
“It’s not necessarily up to me as a scientist to say what’s right and wrong when it comes to flavors, but I can at least inform about the toxicity of individual flavoring chemicals,” Carll said.
The study is funded through 2027, but Carll said researchers are already seeing early results.
“We found that menthol is capable of inducing cardiac arrhythmias, at least we see this in mice,” he said. “It seems to increase heart rate more than tobacco flavored e-liquids.”
Full results are expected in five years. Carll hopes the results can help agencies like the FDA make informed decisions about the health effects of vaping flavors. He said the data could be used to determine which chemicals should be regulated or potentially banned.
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