Abstract
Tobacco smoking increases the risk of metabolic disorders due to the combination of harmful chemicals, whereas pure nicotine can improve glucose tolerance. E-cigarette vapour contains nicotine and some of the harmful chemicals found in cigarette smoke at lower levels. To investigate how e-vapour affects metabolic profiles, male Balb/c mice were exposed to a high-fat diet (HFD, 43% fat, 20kJ/g) for 16weeks, and e-vapour in the last 6weeks. HFD alone doubled fat mass and caused dyslipidaemia and glucose intolerance. E-vapour reduced fat mass in HFD-fed mice; only nicotine-containing e-vapour improved glucose tolerance. In chow-fed mice, e-vapour increased lipid content in both blood and liver. Changes in liver metabolic markers may be adaptive responses rather than causal. Future studies can investigate how e-vapour differentially affects metabolic profiles with different diets.
Highlights
In recent years, e-cigarettes have gained significant popularity among younger people, where they are considered as a must-have electronic and a ‘safe cigarette’
The results are expressed as mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM) and analysed by two-way ANOVA followed by Fisher’s least significant difference (LSD) post-hoc tests (GraphPad Prism 9, GraphPad, CA, United States)
Liver weight was not changed by high-fat diet (HFD) but was reduced by e-vapour exposure (p < 0.01 overall e-vapour exposure effect; p < 0.05 Chow + e-cig18 and Chow + e-cig0 vs. Chow + sham, HFD + sham vs. HFD + e-cig0, Table 1)
Summary
E-cigarettes have gained significant popularity among younger people, where they are considered as a must-have electronic and a ‘safe cigarette’. The negative impacts of tobacco smoking on metabolic disorders in adults and adolescents have been well documented (Oh et al, 2005; Weitzman et al, 2005). The effects of tobacco smoke and pure nicotine can be different, as tobacco smoke contains more than 5,000 chemicals resulting in toxicity to the body, including increased risk of metabolic diseases and cancer. Addictive, is anti-inflammatory (Kalra et al, 2004; Cohen et al, 2007). This leads to the discrepancies between in vivo studies using pure nicotine and direct cigarette smoke. E-cigarette vapour, which is claimed to be water and nicotine, is clearly not so innoxious
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