The Most Dangerous Ingredients That Aren’t In Your Vape Device (Until You Use It)

“No, officer, there are no explosives in this house” says the bomb-maker, truthfully, on account of keeping the ingredients in separate containers to be combined later.

In a similar vein, there are two very toxic substances that aren’t in vapes, and so don’t need to go on any labels, but get created inside the vape once heated.

And them, the newly-created chemicals, that weren’t there when you bought it, go into your lungs.

Spoiler: what they do there is not good

The last place you want a chemical factory to be is in front of your face

In few words: heating the main ingredient in most e-cigarette fluids—propylene glycol—creates two toxic chemicals, methylglyoxal and acetaldehyde, which are very harmful to human lung cells.

Both of these latter two chemicals disrupt key cell functions, but of the two methylglyoxal is the most damaging even at lower concentrations; it impairs mitochondria (famously: the cell’s energy-givers) and weakens the actin cytoskeleton, compromising cell shape and stability.

In case “the actin cytoskeleton” sounds like something that might be encountered as a monster in a Dungeons & Dragons game, we’ll take a moment to clarify:

• actin = a specialized kind of protein
• cyto = of or relating to cells
• skeleton = the most dry part that gives structure to the wetter parts

So, “actin cytoskeleton” = the relatively tougher protein structure that helps a cell to stay the shape it’s supposed to be

…until methylglyoxal comes along and starts breaking it down, that is.

And it’s worth bearing in mind also that lower-powered e-cigarettes—which many users assume are safer—usually generate higher levels of methylglyoxal.

Here’s the paper itself: Acetaldehyde and methylglyoxal: comparative analysis of toxic electronic cigarette degradation products in 3D and 2D exposure systems using human bronchial epithelial models

And here’s a pop-science article about it, that’s lighter reading than the paper, while also having a little more background information: Hidden toxins in vapes can harm lung cells

There are also other “bonus chemicals” from disposable vapes specifically, insofar as the chemicals you will inhale were (again) not included as ingredients, and in this case, they came from the heating element itself:

❝To place the potential for Pb exposure in the context of traditional cigarettes, Figure 3B compares the mass of Pb in a pack of traditional cigarettes (20 cigarettes) to the mass of Pb of a comparable nicotine dose from the Esco Bar devices.

In comparison to the highest Pb delivery measured for traditional cigarettes, on average Esco Bar devices (Flavored and Clear) emitted ∼4 to 13 times more Pb (4.9 and 15.4 μg, respectively) in the first 200 puffs than the highest reported for a pack of cigarettes (20 cigarettes; 1.2 μg).

For context, this level of Pb exposure is equivalent to smoking as many as 19 packs of cigarettes in a single day.❞

Pb = lead, as in the heavy metal of that name

Read in full: Guess How Much Lead Is Released By Disposable Vapes

Of course, even the base ingredients aren’t great either

While they indeed become much worse once turned into methylglyoxal and acetaldehyde, even the raw ingredients are Not Good™, for example:

• Potential harmful health effects of inhaling nicotine-free shisha-pen vapor: a chemical risk assessment of the main components propylene glycol and glycerol
• Inflammatory and Oxidative Responses Induced by Exposure to Commonly Used e-Cigarette Flavoring Chemicals and Flavored e-Liquids without Nicotine

So, the substrate itself can cause irritation, and flavorings (with cinnamaldehyde, the cinnamon flavoring, being one of the worst) can really mess with our body’s inflammatory and oxidative responses.

You can read more about this in our main feature on vaping, here:

Vaping: A Lot Of Hot Air? ← this also looks at which is worst, out of vaping and smoking (both are very bad, but can you guess which is relatively worst?)