A collaborative process
The reasearch team believed that collaborative processes can and should be continued for future studies.
Their work has been documented in the paper "Electronic nicotine delivery systems exhibit reduced bronchial epithelial cells toxicity compared to cigarette: the Replica Project ".
This type of research is important because tobacco controllers, public health bodies, universities and politicians tend to discount any research conducted by the tobacco industry and so it is never taken into consideration when making policy decisions.
The study highlighted here was the first project that repeated tobacco industry research but that wasundertaken by independent academics. It has added to the body of knowledge that states vaping is far safer than smoking.
Researchers took bronchial epithelium cells (cells that line certain parts of the lungs) and subjected them to tobacco smoke and e-cigarette vapour. They took measurements from three separate investigations, noting something called ascytokine levels - the amount of build up of a special type of protein that indicates the stress placevels are good indicators of the extent of cell damage. What became clear to the research team was that electronic cigarettes produce a vapour that is "substantially reduced " in its levels of toxicity compared to the levels of toxins found in tobacco smoke.
In addition, most of the work conducted, demonstrated that vaping produces no toxic effects. This finding confirmed that it is the other chemical compounds found in tobacco smoke that cause the damage to the lining of the lungs and not nicotine.