How These Tasty E-Cigarettes Are Damaging Your Lungs

How These Tasty E-Cigarettes Are Damaging Your Lungs

The chemicals found in cinnamon-flavored vaping products are causing just as much damage to your cilia as real cigarettes.

E-cigarettes are now a popular alternative to tradition cigarettes. The battery-powered devices warm and vaporize a flavored solution that users inhale, as part of a habit that is supposedly “healthier” than regular smoking.

But are they really? A new study has found that a common flavoring in e-cigarettes has chemical characteristics similar to toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke.

And it gets worse. This substance disrupts your lungs’ antibacterial defense system.

The chemical in question is called cinnamaldehyde. It’s a common food-safe flavoring agent, and the chemical that gives cinnamon its characteristic taste and smell.

Related: Is Vaping All That Bad? Pediatricians Think, Yes

According to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, cinnamaldehyde attacks the tiny hairs known as cilia in your airway. It stops them from working properly, something that mimics reactive aldehydes in cigarette smoke. And it could be leading you down the road to a bunch of lung diseases.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that flavoring agents are used in extremely high doses in e-cigarettes, leading to high rates of exposures if you vape.

What’s the best course of action? While quitting vaping or smoking is a challenge, it’s always best. Obviously, if you choose to avoid putting anything in your lungs besides normal air and oxygen, you’re one step ahead. Or at the very least, go easy on the cinnamon.

For more on e-cigarettes, click here.

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