Study raises questions about e-cigarette use

Using certain electronic cigarettes at high temperature settings could potentially release more formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical, than smoking traditional cigarettes does, new lab tests suggest.

The research does not prove a health risk — it involved limited testing on just one brand of e-cigarettes and was done in test tubes, not people. It also does not mean e-cigarettes are better or worse than regular ones; tobacco smoke contains dozens of things that can cause cancer.

But it does highlight how little is known about the safety of e-cigarettes — battery-powered devices that heat liquid to deliver nicotine in a vapor rather than from burning tobacco.

“It’s a potential red flag,” one independent expert — Stephen Hecht, a chemist and tobacco researcher at the University of Minnesota — said of the study. “Under some conditions, e-cigarettes might be generating more formaldehyde than you’d want to be exposed to. But I don’t think we know enough yet. There’s a huge variety in the makeup of these cigarettes and how they are used.”

The study was published Wednesday as a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Formaldehyde is found in many things — building materials, disinfectants and embalming fluid.

Some tank system e-cigarettes let users turn up the voltage to increase the heat and the amount of liquid, which contains the nicotine and flavorings, in the vapor. David Peyton, a chemist at Portland State University, and colleagues tested one brand with two voltage settings. They used a syringe to collect vapor from 10 samples, each one representing several puffs, at both voltage levels.

They measured formaldehyde hemiacetal in the liquid portion of the vapor.

At low voltage the chemical was not detected. But at the high voltage setting, levels of that compound were five to 15 times greater than the amount of formaldehyde users would get from traditional cigarettes.

Gregory Conley, a lawyer with the American Vaping Association, an advocacy group for e-cigarettes, criticized the study methods.

“They use the device in a manner that no one does,” he said.