Trendy e-cigarettes enter Europe: chemical characterization of JUUL pods and its aerosols.

The popularity and the high nicotine content of the American pod e-cigarette JUUL have raised many concerns. To comply with European law, the nicotine concentration in the liquids of the European version, which has been recently released on the market, is limited to below 20 mg/mL. This limit can possibly be circumvented by technological adjustments that increase vaporization and consequently, elevate nicotine delivery. In this study, we compare vapor generation and nicotine delivery of the initial European version, a modified European version, and the original American high-nicotine variant using a machine vaping set-up. Additionally, benzoic acid and carbonyl compounds are quantified in the aerosol. Further, concentrations of nicotine, benzoic acid, propylene glycol, and glycerol, along with the density and pH value of JUUL e-liquids have been assessed. Whereas the initial European version did not compensate for the low nicotine content in the liquid, we provide evidence for an increased vaporization by the modified European version. As a consequence, nicotine delivery per puff approximates the American original. Notably, this is not associated with an increased generation of carbonyl compounds. Our data suggest a similar addictiveness of the enhanced European version and the original American product.

Levels of selected analytes in the emissions of "heat not burn" tobacco products that are relevant to assess human health risks.

Consumers of combustible cigarettes are exposed to many different toxicologically relevant substances associated with negative health effects. Newly developed "heat not burn" (HNB) devices are able to contain lower levels of Harmful and Potentially Harmful Constituents (HPHCs) in their emissions compared to tobacco cigarettes. However, to develop toxicological risk assessment strategies, further independent and standardized investigations addressing HPHC reduction need to be done. Therefore, we generated emissions of a commercially available HNB product following the Health Canada Intense smoking regimen and analyzed total particulate matter (TPM), nicotine, water, aldehydes, and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are major contributors to health risk. We show that nicotine yield is comparable to typical combustible cigarettes, and observe substantially reduced levels of aldehydes (approximately 80-95%) and VOCs (approximately 97-99%). Emissions of TPM and nicotine were found to be inconsistent during the smoking procedure. Our study confirms that levels of major carcinogens are markedly reduced in the emissions of the analyzed HNB product in relation to the conventional tobacco cigarettes and that monitoring these emissions using standardized machine smoking procedures generates reliable and reproducible data which provide a useful basis to assess exposure and human health risks.

Modulation of inflammatory gene expression by a bilberry ( Vaccinium myrtillus L.) extract and single anthocyanins considering their limited stability under cell culture conditions.

Studies with nonintestinal models indicate that anthocyanin-rich extracts can modulate inflammatory gene expression and may help prevent development of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). This work investigated the influence of a bilberry ( Vaccinium myrtillus L.) extract (BE) and comprising anthocyanins on pro-inflammatory genes in IFN-γ/IL-1ß/TNF-α stimulated human colon epithelial cells (T84) by qRT-PCR and cytokine arrays. Moreover, the stability of selected anthocyanins under cell culture conditions was examined to assess their anti-inflammatory properties. BE and single anthocyanins significantly inhibited the expression and secretion of IBD-associated pro-inflammatory mediators (TNF-α, IP-10, I-TAC, sICAM-1, GRO-α) in the stimulated cells. The anti-inflammatory activity thereby strongly depends on the aglycon structure (hydroxylation and methylation pattern) and the sugar moiety. In contrast to anthocyanidins, which were highly unstable in cell culture medium, suggesting that their degradation products might contribute to the inhibitory effects assigned to the parent compounds, anthocyanins have higher stability and may directly contribute to BE's effects.