Findings from a Recent Study on E-Cigarette Safety

A graduate of California State University, Fresno, Daniel “Danny” Ashley formerly served as emergency department physician assistant at Fresno Community Regional Medical Center. While pursuing a bachelor of science in biology, Danny Ashley’s research project “Evaluating the Impact of E-Cigarette Liquid on Epithelial Cells” won the outstanding poster award at the 39th Annual Central California Research Symposium.

In the US, the increasing rate of deaths associated with carcinoma of the lungs in smokers is continuously being raised in many public health awareness discussions. This concern led to the invention of electronic cigarettes (popularly called e-cigs), which were portrayed by many tobacco brands as reliable solutions for their customers. According to the companies, these battery-powered devices are safer alternatives to traditional cigarettes. On the contrary, however, no scientific article has been published yet to validate such a claim.

At California State University’s department of biology in Fresno, a study was conducted by researchers Danny Ashley, Shyam Patel, and Dr. Jason Bush to investigate the effect of e-juice (chemicals released from e-cigarettes — mainly nicotine, vegetable glycerine, and propylene glycol) on metabolically-active lung epithelial cells. The specimens would react to e-juice in similar ways to lung tissues of smokers. A range of dilutions (0.1 to 5 percent) of an 18.5 mM nicotine was used for sampling. At the end of the study, apparent cytotoxicity (intoxication and proliferation) of the cells was recorded, suggesting a direct proportion between e-juice and relative death of respiratory cells.