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. The journal said it had been reviewed by experts in the field.