MEXICO: It turns out that vaping is bad for you after all: according to a report published by the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a chemical found in candy-flavored e-cigarettes called diacetyl can cause a number of deadly lung complications if inhaled over a long period of time.
Even non-e-cig users have probably come into contact with diacetyl at some point in their lives — it’s used as a butter substitute for microwave and movie theater popcorn. While ingesting diacetyl is considered harmless, the respiratory diseases linked to breathing it in — including bronchiolitis obliterans — have earned the latter the nickname “Popcorn Lung.”
Scientists first became aware of the dangers of diacetyl when they noticed that workers at factories that produced microwaveable popcorn were developing “Popcorn Lung” at unusually high rates. Bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as obliterative bronchiolitis (OB), is a rare but lethal form of non-reversible obstructive lung disease. As the name suggests, those afflicted with the disease experience compression (and even obstruction) in their bronchioles (the minute airway branches in the lungs) due to the build-up of fibrosis, or scar tissue. Symptoms include dry coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath.
“Recognition of the hazards associated with inhaling flavoring chemicals started with ‘Popcorn Lung’ over a decade ago,” said Joseph Allen, an assistant professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and one of the lead authors on the report. “However, diacetyl and other related flavoring chemicals are used in many other flavors beyond butter-flavored popcorn, including fruit flavors, alcohol flavors, and, we learned in our study, candy flavored e-cigarettes.”
