A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center found that electronic cigarettes are as damaging to gums and teeth as conventional cigarettes. This was the first study to address electronic cigarettes’ damage to oral health.
An electronic cigarette (e-cig) is a small device that vaporizes a flavored liquid. These vapors, containing nicotine, glycerol, propylene glycol and other chemicals, are then inhaled by the user.
E-cigs have been popular for the past decade, even among younger populations. According to the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey, e-cig usage among high school students tripled between 2013 and 2014, increasing from approximately 660,000 to two million students in just a year. Another report conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that in 2015, 16 percent of high schoolers had used an e-cig in the past 30 days.
Although many e-cig companies market their products by claiming that e-cigs are safer alternatives to conventional cigarettes, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported on the false safety of e-cigs.
”E-cigarettes still contain nicotine and other potentially harmful chemicals,” the report states.
The researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center detected different levels of aldehydes and carbonyls, in addition to nicotine in e-cig aerosols. Aldehydes cause oxidative stress, DNA damage and cellular senescence, a stress-induced permanent condition that ceases cell growth. Cellular senescence attributes to chronic inflammation and therefore contributes greatly to the risk of oral diseases.
Periodontal disease is an abnormal condition affecting the surrounding of a tooth. This condition occurs commonly during inflammation of the periodontal tissues, majorly consisting of periodontal ligament fibroblasts and gingival epithelium cells. For their experiments, the researchers used Human Periodontal Ligament Fibroblasts (HPdLFs) and pooled Human Gingival Epithelium Cells Progenitors (HGEPps), cells that are found in and around the mouth.
The HPdLFs and HGEPps were exposed to e-cig vapors for 24 hours. Researchers found that the cells experienced a greater response to protein carbonylation, caused by oxidative stress, and inflammation. HGEPp cells did not have a significant response compared to the control when exposed to vapor without nicotine. Flavored vapors had a greater increase in protein carbonylation and pro-inflammatory responses.
The researchers claim oxidants from e-cig aerosols are comparable to those of conventional cigarette smoke. Both conventional and e-cig smoke leads to DNA damage and inflammatory responses.
Therefore, e-cigs cause damage to the gums and teeth at a level comparable to conventional cigarettes.
“We showed that when the vapors from an e-cigarette are burned, it causes cells to release inflammatory proteins, which in turn aggravate stress within cells, resulting in damage that could lead to various oral diseases,” Irfan Rahman, professor of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry, said in a press release.
The experiment exposed the HPdLFs and HGEPp cells to vapors for set amounts of time. The lasting effects of smoking e-cigs is not entirely foreign, but no long-term studies have been conducted due to the relatively recent development of e-cigs.
“How much and how often someone is smoking e-cigarettes will determine the extent of damage to the gums and oral cavity,” Rahman said in a press release. “More research, including long term and comparative studies, are needed to better understand the health effects of e-cigarettes.”
