Abstract
Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) containing synthetic nicotine have yet to be classified as tobacco products; consequently, there is ambiguity over whether Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority can be extended to include tobacco-free nicotine (TFN) e-cigarettes. In recent years, a more significant number of e-cigarette companies have been manufacturing TFN-containing e-cigarettes and e-liquids to circumvent FDA regulations. While studies have shown that aerosols generated from tobacco-derived nicotine-containing e-cigarettes contain significant reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, no comparison studies have been conducted using TFN e-cigarettes. This study uses a single puff aerosol generator to aerosolize TFN and tobacco-derived nicotine-containing vape products and subsequently involves semi-quantifying the ROS generated by these vape products in H2O2 equivalents. We found that the differences between ROS levels generated from TFN and tobacco-derived nicotine-containing vape products vary by flavor. TFN tobacco flavored and fruit flavored products are more toxic in terms of ROS generation than menthol/ice and drink/beverage flavored products using TFN. Our study provides further insight into understanding how flavoring agents used in vape products impact ROS generation from e-cigarettes differently in TFN e-cigarettes than e-cigarettes using tobacco-derived nicotine.
Highlights
Based on data from the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), a report published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report estimated 11.3% (1.72 million) of high school students and an estimated 2.8% (320,000) of middle school students currently use e-cigarettes [1]
Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) containing synthetic nicotine have yet to be classified as tobacco products; there is ambiguity over whether Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority can be extended to include tobacco-free nicotine (TFN) e-cigarettes
We found that the differences between reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels generated from TFN and tobacco-derived nicotine-containing vape products vary by flavor
Summary
Based on data from the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), a report published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report estimated 11.3% (1.72 million) of high school students and an estimated 2.8% (320,000) of middle school students currently use e-cigarettes [1]. No studies to date have been conducted involving comparative analyses in exogenous ROS levels between aerosols generated by synthetic-nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and those by e-cigarettes containing tobacco-derived nicotine. With the substantial rise in youth usage of e-cigarettes and a more significant number of e-cigarette manufacturers producing TFN e-cigarettes, more studies examining differences in ROS levels between aerosols generated by tobacco-based nicotine and synthetic nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are needed [11]. Unlike previous studies which have analyzed the ROS concentration levels within aerosols generated by tobacco-derived nicotine-containing e-cigarettes, our study includes analyses of the acellular ROS levels generated by TFN e-cigarettes [4–6]. Adding to the novelty of this study, we seek to understand the role the type of salt nicotine used in e-flavored e-cigarettes (synthetic or tobacco-derived) has in altering acellular ROS levels within generated aerosols. We quantify ROS levels generated by synthetic nicotine-containing ENDS products and compare them to ROS levels generated from their flavor-specific tobacco-derived nicotine-containing counterparts
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