The next time you inhale the vapor of an e-cigarette, consider this: there may be toxic levels of metals–including lead–that could be leaking from the heating coils of your device .
This is the finding of a new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published yesterday in Environmental Health Perspectives.
While the study is small—evaluating devices in a random sample of 56 users—it revealed that a significant number of the devices produced aerosols with potentially dangerous levels of lead, as well as other important metals such as chromium, manganese and nickel. Chronic exposure to such metals by inhalation has been linked to wide ranging effects–including cancer–on multiple organ systems including the lungs, brain, heart, liver, as well as the immune system.
