““Vaping e-liquids can disrupt heart’s rhythm” report newspapers covering a new study, but fail to emphasise the fundamental point that it involved poisoning mice. A genuine tobacco harm reduction expert pointed out that the only important message is that “owners of pet mice should not allow their mice to use e-cigarettes”. Professor Jacob George, Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine and Therapeutics at University of Dundee Medical School, said: “The metabolism of mice is very different from humans and any extrapolation to overall, long-term human health is, frankly, guesswork at best. If this was indeed true, given the significant numbers of vapers worldwide, we would have expected to see an explosion in cardiac arrhythmia cases which we are not seeing in clinical practice, at all.“
Professor Peter Hajek, Director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit, Queen Mary University of London, added: “There are several problems with generalising the findings to humans. Vapers are not exposed to any significant levels of acrolein because overheated e-liquid has an unpleasant taste and so this is avoided. The study used exposure levels of the other chemicals that are tolerated by humans, but the same doses can be distressing to much smaller mammals with much more sensitive sense of smell and very different tolerance of drug effects. It would be odd if animals exposed to aversive stimulation did not show a cardiovascular response! The reason for conducting the study in mice is unclear. Animal models are used when the experiment cannot be conducted in humans, but there are no barriers to comparing heart rate and ECG responses to e-cigarette components and to smoking in humans.””
ARTICLE LINK: Not Nice Mice Research
Store
