Harmful Ingredients of the E-cigarettes. Biomedical Sciences Essay

Harmful Ingredients of the E-cigarettes
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Harmful Ingredients of the E-cigarettes
Introduction
Smoking of tobacco is very detrimental to health. Because of this reason, e-cigarettes have been developed as safer alternatives for tobacco. The e-cigarettes belong to a class of newly developed electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), which are considered to be less harmful, compared to the combustible tobacco (Phillips et al., 2017). There is rapid growth in the consumption of the e-cigarettes and it is estimated that they are going to outperform the traditional cigarettes by 2025 with a projected market value of $50 billion in the United States alone. This exponential growth is due to aggressive marketing and the fallacy that electronic cigarettes are safe. However, the consumption of e-cigarettes has very harmful consequences on health (Ghinai et al., 2019). They ingredients particularly affect the lungs.
Background
The electronic cigarettes are made up and an atomizer that has a metal coil that is heated by an electric current. It also has an electronic cigarette (ECIG) and a wick made of silica or cotton (Chun et al., 2017). When a button is touched electric current runs through the coil in the atomizer leading to the produces heat. The heat from the atomizer causes the conversion of the electronic cigarette (ECIG) liquid into aerosols that are then 'vaped'/sucked through the tube of the device (Sussan et al., 2015). Vaping results in the transmission of large amounts of aerosols in the respiratory system and the oropharynx. High levels of aerosol particles are deposited in the respiratory system with every puff.
Most of the harmful components of tobacco are not present in electronic cigarettes. The major component of the e-cigarette liquid includes nicotine, glycerin, propylene and glycol. The e-cigarette liquid is synthesized by mixing propylene glycol (PG) and vegetable glycerin (VG) which adds flavor (Tang et al., 2019). Nicotine is the most addictive and harmful constituent of the e-cigarettes. It causes lung inflammation and carcinogenesis. According to a study conducted by the University of Indianapolis nicotine carcinogenesis of the lung is as a result of the variations of the CYP2B6 genes (Zhang et al, 1999). The simultaneous exposure of nicotine and hyperoxia induces the growth of cancerous cells in the lungs. Prolonged exposure to nicotine may hasten this process. Besides, nicotine inhibits the anti-apoptotic pathway thereby promoting the tumorigenesis of the lungs. It proliferates and progresses into the cancerous lung cells, aiding in the translocation of the ARB1 gene nuclei (Berkelhamer et al., 2019). Research has also indicated that nicotine plays a significant role in the metastasis and progression of tumors and elevated angiogenesis through the CXCR4 genes.
The impact of propylene glycol and nicotine may also increase the risk of developing ...