Irritant Toxin In E-Cigarette Vapor You Can Easily Avoid

Benzaldehyde is a colorless liquid with a pleasing almond scent. It turns into a vapor almost immediately when it is heated, and it is used as a flavor component in both regular and e-cigarettes. 

Benzaldehyde isn't just used as a flavoring component in products we smoke. It's actually hard to escape benzaldehyde. Not just the source of that almond-like aroma in almonds themselves, benzaldehye is also found in peaches, cherries, apples, and apricots. It's found in essential oils, including cinnamon, citronella, sassafras, hyacinth, rock rose, and patchouli. It's added to wine, beer, candy, baked goods, puddings, soft drinks, chewing gums, shaving cream, deodorants, bath soaps, and moisturizers, and it's used as an industrial solvent. A Swedish study found benzaldehyde in the house dust collected in 373 out of 389 homes.

The major regulators of chemical flavoring agents like the FDA in the USA don't get especially upset about benzaldehyde because it's not linked to cancer or birth defects. Benzaldehyde doesn't accumulate in the internal organs, and it rapidly breaks down into a chemical called benzoic acid, which is easily detoxified by the liver. The FDA even labels it as GRAS, generally recognized as safe. That doesn't mean, however, it's completely safe in all situations.

Benzaldehyde Is an Irritant of the Eyes, Nose, and Throat

Nobody gets a sore throat from eating cherries or eye irritation from chewing gum, but the benzaldehyde in e-cigarettes may be too much of a good thing. Here are some of the reasons why.

• Because benzaldehyde breaks down into benzoic acid once it gets inside the bloodstream, researchers relied on safety reports for benzoic acid rather than taking a closer look at benzaldehyde itself. A lone investigator used actual benzaldehyde in animal testing and found that it can cause swelling, redness, and irritation of the eyes.
• Just about no one is allergic to benzaldehyde itself, but repeated exposure to benzaldehyde potentiates allergies to other substances. If you are repeatedly exposed to benzaldehyde, your "allergies will act up."
• Safety regulators labeled benzaldehyde as non-mutagenic after running tests on bacteria (this is standard procedure). However, when an investigator did a follow-up study, benzaldehyde was found actually to be mutagenic in guinea pigs, and to encourage mutations when cancer already exists. In other words, it won't give you cancer, but it possibly makes at least one form of cancer, lymphoma, more difficult to treat.
• Exposure to formaldehyde, which is in a variety of products ranging from real cigarettes to fingernail polish, increases the sensitivity of the lungs and nasal passages to benzaldehyde.
• Benzaldehyde inside the body is largely non-toxic. In testing with rabbits, however, it only took 750 parts per million to cause irritation of the lungs and 1000 parts per million to cause death.

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How Can Something Generally Recognized as Safe Cause Death?

As disturbing as are the results of these studies conducted after benzaldehyde was approved for general use, this chemical really is safe in most of the applications for which it is used. If it is put into food or a product like toothpaste, your liver promptly breaks it down into a safe form. If it is used in deodorant, it as most contributes to heightened sensitivity on your skin. If you are using a vaping solution that contains benzaldehyde over and over again, however, it may be a major contributor to scratchy throat, eye irritation, allergies, and asthma. Just how bad is the problem?

Benzaldehyde's Vaping Effects Won't Kill You, But Can Make You Sick

Is vaping bad? Maybe the main problem is really a matter of how much and which products are used.

Some people use e-cigarettes as a stop-gap measure while they are tapering off tobacco for a few months at a time. Most people who use e-cigarettes vape 100 to 200 puffs every day for a decade or more. Dr. Maciej Goniewicz of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York set about to test vaping solutions to see if they contained benzaldehyde.

Goniewicz's teams purchased 145 e-cigarette products in a variety of flavors online. They tested 40 products that contained a combination of berry and tropical fruit flavors, 37 that contained tobacco flavor, 15 featuring flavors from alcoholic beverages, 11 chocolate flavors, 10 coffee flavors, 10 mint or menthol flavors, 10 cherry flavors, and 10 products featuring other flavorings.

They measured the chemicals in aerosol vapor from the liquids with an automatic smoking simulator. In each test, 30 puffs were taken from each cigarette in two series of 15 puffs with a five-minute interval between puffs, imitating the way vapers use their e-cigarettes. The machine trapped benzaldehyde on sorbent tubes, extracted, and then analyzed with high-performance liquid chromatography.

The researchers noted:

"The benzaldehyde doses inhaled with 30 puffs from flavored e-cigarettes were often higher than the doses inhaled from conventional cigarettes." Of the 145 products actually sampled, benzaldehyde was found in 108.The researchers also noted that the benzaldehyde doses were highest in cherry-flavored nicotine solutions. Exposure to benzaldehyde from e-cigarettes was "1000 times lower" than occupational exposure of workers in chemical plants that make the compound, but perhaps this was because the amount of time in contact with vaping smoke was also 1000 times lower than a work day in the plant. Another way of interpreting the data is that vaping is like carrying around a little chemical plant, for benzaldehyde, but at least you don't have stay there all day long.

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What practical guidance can we take away from this study?

• First of all, if you vape, and you have chronic sore throat, at least stop using cherry-flavored vaping solution. This may not clear up the problem right away, but at least it will reduce the severity of allergic reactions and mitigate the effects of exposure to formaldehyde in your environment (from wash-and-wear fabric treatments, plug-in air fresheners, nail polish, baby wipes, real cigarettes, and manufactured wood). Check an e-cigarette review to find products that contain any benzaldehyde at all.
• Secondly, if you vape every day, or several times every day, try to avoid getting the vapor in your eyes, and if you do, use liquid tears several times a day. The eyes may be even more sensitive to benzaldehyde than your respiratory tract.
• Finally, don't be surprised if your doctor asks you if you vape, and if you use a cherry-flavored product. This research is being well publicized in the medical profession, and your doctor has probably heard about it.