Scientists from the British American Tobacco company conducted a study to exhibit that vapor from e-cigarette does not cause DNA mutation. They have examined that aerosol produced by the novel hybrid tobacco product using the Ames assay.
Several studies conducted by the BAT show that vapor from e-cigarette possesses a little to no effect on human cells. The scientists used two robots to smoke to produce the smoke from the regular cigarette, the 3R4F and the e-cigarette. Afterward, they measure the particle mass and nicotine in the aerosol produced by both cigarettes using the Ames test.
According to their research, the smoke and particulate matter from the regular cigarette are mutagenic, and it only takes 24 minutes to take effect. While for the e-cigarette, its vapor and particulate matter had no effect in DNA mutation, even after three full hours of constant exposure to e-cigarette smoke. However, electronic cigarette produced a bigger mass of smoke that the regular 3R4F cigarette.
The result of the research on e-cigarette has been published in two journals. One is published in Mutation Research vol. 812 in December 2016, with a title "The Mutagenic Assessment Of An Electronic-Cigarette And Reference Cigarette Smoke Using The Ames Assay In Strains TA98 and TA100." Another report of the research is published in the Food and Chemical Toxicology journal titled "A Novel Hybrid Product That Heats Tobacco Through Controlled Aerosol Release (Part 2): In Vitro Biological Assessment And Comparison With Different Tobacco-Heating Products."
E-cigarette was invented in China by a pharmacist named Hon Lik and patented in 2003. The act of smoking the electronic cigarette is called vaping and it is considered safer than the regular 3R4F cigarette. Many kinds of research have been conducted to analyze the health effect of the e-cigarette, including this research from BAT, a multinational tobacco company with headquarter in Southampton.
