Vaping: Is It Really That Bad?

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Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus.
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This is the show that pits facts against fumes. On
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today's show, vaping. Before we get any further, I need
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to introduce you to our first guest.
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Hello, my name's Nina Oyama.
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I'm a comedian, writer, actress, an inspirational vaporist.
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This inspirational vaporous first started vaping several years ago when
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she was in the US.
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I was in Los Angeles and somebody gave me a
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vape there and it was just so much yummier than
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the Sydney ones at the time. Like, you know how
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there's different flavors? In Sydney, there was mostly just like,
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you know, pineapple or like berry or whatever. But in
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Los Angeles, they had like lush ice and like aloe
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vera mango sorbet ice. that were like quite enjoyable.
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So what did it feel like in your mouth?
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It just like felt like a flavoured puff of smoke.
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So Nina got into vaping.
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She used to smoke ciggies, but the hangovers after a
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night of drinking and smoking.
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Just got too nasty.
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With vapes, she says, it's nice to have something in
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your hand. It's fun to pass them around at parties.
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And Some people get a head rush.
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My partner is like, oh, I do it for the
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head rush. And I'm like, I don't even get a
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head rush. Like I do it.
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I think it's really funny.
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Like if you are in a conversation and you say
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something really dumb and then you punctuate a bad joke
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by blowing a vape.
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Give me an.
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Example of how like a vape could punctuate a joke.
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I don't know.
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Like if you say something stupid and then you just
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kind of raise your eyebrows and like blow vape out
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of your mouth and just be like.
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I don't know how to. I don't have anything. That's
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coming to mind currently.
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But like, there's just a lot of fun stuff you
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can do with vapes.
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And there's a lot of people doing stuff with vapes,
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particularly kids. About one in 10 middle school and high
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school kids are vaping. That's according to data from the
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FDA and CDC. And us adults, we're doing it too.
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Yeah, it's everywhere. I actually would say most of my
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friends dabble, at least. Have you ever worried about the
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health effects of vaping? Be honest. Nah. Nah. No, like
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vapes are vegan, right? Like they're like, vapes are vegan. Okay,
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but jokes aside, a lot of people are worried about vapes. Governments,
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health officials.
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We're hearing that this is actually a crisis, an epidemic
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among our youth. Do you want to hear some scary
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news reports about vapes?
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Yeah, let's learn about vapes. Vaping could be more dangerous
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than first thought. Kids don't know just how bad it
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is for them.
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Concerned parents, one of their classmates taken to hospital after vaping.
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Teams who vape are more likely to report symptoms of
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depression and anxiety.
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Now, once you get it, you just, you want it
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more and more. Today on the show, how dangerous are
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vapes really?
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It felt like for years, scientists were just grappling with
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what vapes were doing to our brains and bodies. But
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we are finally getting some answers. When it comes to vaping, luckily,
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there's lots of.
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Yeah, let's learn about vapes. And then there's science. Science vs.
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Vaping is coming up just after the break. Welcome back.
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Today on the show, vapes or e-cigarettes. Comedian and vapress.
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Hi, vapress. Is that what we decided to call you?
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Nina Oyama is joining us as well. Hey, Nina. Hello.
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Okay.
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So for the uninitiated, vapes are battery-powered devices that heat
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up a liquid, turning it into an aerosol that you
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can inhale. So actually what you are inhaling is a
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is an aerosol, so they should be called aerosolers.
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Did you know this? You're not actually breathing in vapor. Oh,
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so it's like a deodorant.
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I mean, you could think about it like that because
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vapor is just a gas, but aerosol is like little
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particles inside a gas, like little bits of crap.
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Oh, wow.
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Yes, which is what's in a vape. But obviously vape
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sounds cooler than aerosol. Yeah, yeah. Love that.
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So they were introduced more than a decade ago in
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the hopes that they would help people quit smoking and
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that they would be safe.
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But to find out if that's true, we called up Dr.
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Michael Chayton.
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He's a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and
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Mental Health in Toronto, Canada.
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Have you tried a vape?
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Yeah, so I've definitely tried vaping. You want to be
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able to see what it's like. Certainly in the 90s
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when I was a teenager, I also tried cigarettes as well.
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It's new.
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It's novel.
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It's like, what is this exactly? So Michael, scientist, but
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just like us. I don't know, man. He sounds like
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a nerd. You just made me snot. No nerds around here.
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I wouldn't know them. Never met.
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Them.
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So one of the big.
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Fears around vaping has always been that you're breathing crap
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into your lungs and that it could damage them. But
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for a long time, we didn't really know if this
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was a big issue or not. And so Michael did
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this study to find out. And it started with some
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ads on Facebook and Instagram. In your paper, it just
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notes that you recruited people in your study via social media.
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How are you trying to capture the youth?
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One of our earlier studies, we were doing research on
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food and we just put disgusting pictures of food, like
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gross close-ups of meat.
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And, you know, it's like.
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one weird trick to, you know, understand your food habits.
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And it was like, fill out this survey. That's the
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weird trick. Yeah, fill out the survey. Exactly. Exactly.
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The ethics board was, you know, it was encouraging us
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to be.
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More boring, but. Not such a nerd now. Okay.
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So he just did this boring ad over Facebook and
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Instagram saying like, can you fill out this survey about vaping?
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Just over 3,000 people took the bait. They were between
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16 and 25.
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Some of them were ciggy smokers. Others stuck to vaping.
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Some used both.
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And they answered questions like, when you vape, how many
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puffs do you take? And how old were you when
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you first tried vaping? And then he also asked them
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questions about their health.
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Whether they were coughing or wheezing or they had colds regularly.
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Difficulty breathing.
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Other questions were like, were they coughing up phlegm regularly?
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Did they have shortness of breath? Like, did they run
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out of breath from simple chores?
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Nina, how would you have answered any of those questions?
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Yeah, I think I pretty much do have a cold
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all the time.
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Really?
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Yeah, but do you think that's from vapes or do
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you think that's from something else?
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Just asking questions.
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So.
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In Michael's study, he checked in and asked people these
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questions every three months for up to a year. And
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he saw this very clear trend. For the people who vaped,
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the more puffs they took on average, the more likely
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they were to have some respiratory symptoms. Stuff like a
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cough or coughing up phlegm. Which to Michael, he told us,
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was worrying, particularly considering how young the people in his
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study were.
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If you think about like a 19-year-old who's complaining of wheezing.
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That's not a normal thing, you know, that having a
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sort of a chronic cough. Also, that's not a normal
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thing either. And that's what these youth were reporting.
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Yeah, and it's not just Michael's study that's found this.
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So other research is picking up similar things, you know,
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seeing that vapors have higher rates of wheezing compared to non-vapors.
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And now a lot of the symptoms in Michael's study,
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they weren't that scary. Like no one likes a cough.
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But you can deal with it.
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But Michael is worried about what happens next because his
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study was only for a year or so, right? And
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he told us that from other research that we know,
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respiratory symptoms are often the starting place.
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You know, so I think respiratory symptoms are one of
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the canaries in the coal mine.
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And so one of the things he's worried about is
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this lung disease that you see with cigarette smoking, which
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is called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.
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What is it? What happens? You just can't breathe. You
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can't breathe.
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And so probably if you've seen people go around with
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oxygen tanks, that's likely COPD.
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Uh-huh.
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So this is where we start getting into like scaremongery land.
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But COPD kicks in when your lungs are really screwed.
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We know it is linked to cigarette smoking. We are
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already seeing some data that it is vaping ups your
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chance of getting it, also increases your risk of asthma.
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Damn.
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But obviously early days here.
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Yeah.
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And also not everyone in Michael's study said that they
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had those symptoms on his survey. In fact, about one-third
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of the people who vape daily and stayed off ciggies
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actually said that they had none of the respiratory stuff
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that he was talking about, one-third.
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Yeah.
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Okay, so our next question is, what is it about
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vapes that could be causing these symptoms? Because one culprit,
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something that's been getting a lot of attention recently, flavors.
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Not my lush eyes no don't take away my lush
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eyes It's like the best bit of vaping.
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Well, so then you won't be surprised to hear that
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one survey showed that 85% of kids who vape are
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using vape flavors. But in crackdowns around the world, governments,
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including here in Australia, are trying to ban flavors. So
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let's look at the science. Are flavors really the bad
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guys here? And to know that, we have to take
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a trip.
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To Flavortown. Oh yeah, Flavocountry. And our tour guide is
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Alona Jaspers. We spoke to her a few years ago.
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She's an inhalation toxicologist and professor at UNC Chapel Hill
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in North Carolina and she studies flavors in vapes. So
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if you were to do a personality quiz that was
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asking what vape flavor are you, what vape flavor would
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you be?
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I love meat products and I love blood sausage. I
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love bologna. Probably say I would be one of those.
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That's freaking gross, man. Imagine hitting like a meat flavored vape.
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So Alona told us that one way to find out
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if these flavors are safe, whether it's your blood sausage
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or mango, is you have to know what's in them.
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So we asked her about a very popular flavor, mango.
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Okay.
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You're a kid, you're thinking like they just boil up
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a mango and save the essence of it.
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Yeah, well, I can guarantee you that is not the case.
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You're making a different mixture of chemicals that basically then
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taste like mango. The food industry does this all the time.
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Yeah, so just like your favorite ice creams and sodas,
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these vapes are all flavored with like this hodgepodge of
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flavor chemicals.
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Oh, yeah, duh. Well, I don't think it's a strawberry.
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That's For sure.
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No. They used stuff like cinnamaldehyde, benzoaldehyde and isoamyl acetate,
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which is rebranded as cinnamon, cherry almond and banana.
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Oh, delicious.
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So a lot of this stuff had been approved for
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use in food, but what's safe to put in your
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gob isn't necessarily safe for your lungs. So, for example, Nina,
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have you heard of popcorn lung?
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Yes. Doesn't your lung.
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I don't know, get little growths on it like popcorn.
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Do you know when I heard of popcorn lung, that
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is exactly what I.
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Thought was going on, but it's not.
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So our story of popcorn lung begins with a chemical
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called diacetyl, which is used to give things like popcorn
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and vapes their buttery flavor.
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So here's Alona.
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That's always our example as to why something that's perfectly
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safe to eat is not perfectly safe to inhale.
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So as far as we know, diacetyl is fine to eat.
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You can keep eating your popcorn.
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But two decades ago, a bunch of workers in a
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popcorn factory inhaled this stuff in very high doses and
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they actually got really serious lung injuries.
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A few even needed a lung transplant.
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And back in 2015, there was a case report of
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someone who used vapes that had diacetyl in it and
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it damaged his lungs. Huh. And so that is just
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an example that researchers use to say just because something's
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safe to eat.
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It doesn't mean it's safe to inhale.
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Which makes a lot of sense when you think about
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it because the stuff that you eat, it goes into
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your stomach and it gets hit by acids in your stomach,
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gets broken down, filtered out, all that good stuff.
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But that stuff doesn't happen in your lungs. Like they
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don't get that industrial style clean.
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Yeah, so the lung is really not well equipped to detoxify.
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The lung is really there to take oxygen in and CO2,
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carbon dioxide back out.
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So this popcorn lung, it portends trouble for the other flavors.
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Yeah.
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But science being science, you have to test each flavor
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because it has its own concoction of chemicals. And this
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is what Alona does. She tests flavors one by one.
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She'll put them on these little plates, kind of like
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Petri dishes. And one of the first flavors that she
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looked at was cinnamon.
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We basically took different cinnamaldehyde-containing e-liquids and just put it
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in a Petri dish and walked away for two and
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a half hours.
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And it corroded the plastic.
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Wait, the flavoring in cinnamon corroded plastic?
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Yes, it did. Yes, it did. Yes.
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If this is what it does to plastic, it's probably
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not going to be good to inhale this into your lungs.
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Well, I have one question, which is who is smoking
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cinnamon flavored vapes?
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And what is wrong with you?
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I like that instead of me being like, this is
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very concerning because it's a result of vape flavoring.
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And I'm like, it's not even my flavor. That sounds gross.
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I think you've gotten the right message from this.
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I think I'm listening pretty well.
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Yeah.
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Okay, well, so to see if the cinnamon flavour does
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anything for human lung cells, Alona got a dish, doused
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it with cinnamon aldehyde and then put little human lung
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cells into the dish and she found that it affected
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these bits of the cell called cilia. So cilia are
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like the little hair-like structures that help sweep gunk away
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in your lungs.
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One of the things that we saw.
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was that the cinnamaldehyde completely abolishes the cilia from actually
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working the way they're designed to work.
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00:16:00.250 --> 00:16:03.460
And so if that is happening in human lungs, it
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could make it harder for us to clear away the
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gunk in our respiratory tract. Now, in a different group
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of experiments, Alona put immune cells on a Petri dish.
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So this is actually really cool. So if you take
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immune cells.
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Out of a body and then put them with bacteria
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in a Petri dish, the immune cells will still work.
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They will still gobble up that bacteria.
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But Alona found that if you add that cinnamon flavor
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into this mix, When.
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We expose it to cinnamaldehyde, we see that it can
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no longer do that.
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She's seen similar stuff with vanilla flavor.
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Now, we don't know yet if this stuff is happening
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inside a human body, inside your lungs, because all of
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00:16:50.549 --> 00:16:54.279
these studies that Alona does, they're in stuff like petri dishes. Yes.
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00:16:55.100 --> 00:16:57.600
But the fact that we don't know what they're doing
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inside a human body, that is very frustrating for Alona.
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When you have a new product, The safety testing is
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first done in the petri dish and in mice. And
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00:17:10.349 --> 00:17:12.789
if that fails, it never makes it into a human.
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00:17:13.450 --> 00:17:17.890
Wait, but that's bonkers because in this case, everyone's like
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00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:20.619
tried it already and now you're backtracking.
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00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:24.839
I know. I know. It is kind of wild. And,
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00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:28.180
you know, it's not just the flavors that might be
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00:17:28.460 --> 00:17:30.400
mucking up your lungs. There are other flavors.
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Chemicals that scientists are worried about wait there are more
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chemicals yes a big one is called propylene glycol so
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this is the chemical that's used in those machines in
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00:17:41.589 --> 00:17:45.779
clubs and on like theater stages that that produces stuff
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00:17:45.799 --> 00:17:49.180
that looks like smoke oh like a like a fog
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00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:53.589
machine yes that so that is that is propylene glycol
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00:17:53.740 --> 00:17:58.720
so it really is a tiny smoke machine That's wild. Yeah, no,
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00:17:59.400 --> 00:18:03.960
it's cool as a chemical, but when people breathe it in,
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it has been shown to cause some respiratory symptoms. And
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00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:12.150
I think just like zooming out so we don't go
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through all of the chemicals one by one, I mean...
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00:18:15.630 --> 00:18:17.609
for a lot of the stuff that you are breathing
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00:18:17.769 --> 00:18:21.869
in when you suck in a vape, it's these teeny
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00:18:22.049 --> 00:18:26.750
tiny particles that kind of bounce around your delicate lungs
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like teeny tiny wrecking balls causing damage, causing stuff like inflammation.
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And in fact, one study just came out that, you know,
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00:18:36.509 --> 00:18:38.470
it was just a small study, but they actually found
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00:18:38.789 --> 00:18:42.910
more inflammation in the lungs of vapers than cigarette smokers.
348
00:18:43.970 --> 00:18:49.089
So I think just Generally, here is how Michael thinks
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about vapes.
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00:18:50.329 --> 00:18:55.579
It's like breathing in really small pieces of dirt.
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Like the particles themselves are essentially, you know, like small
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pieces of dirt.
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You can imagine them in that way.
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Tiny grains of sand that are entering your lungs and
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potentially damaging them.
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Okay.
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00:19:14.609 --> 00:19:16.069
How are you feeling, by the way, with all that
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00:19:16.109 --> 00:19:18.630
lung talk? I mean, was any of it surprising?
359
00:19:18.650 --> 00:19:25.619
It's like I have always suspected that vapes are bad
360
00:19:25.670 --> 00:19:28.259
for me and now.
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00:19:28.440 --> 00:19:31.240
I just know a little bit more about why that's true,
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00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:31.799
I guess.
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00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:38.319
And what do you think about the immune system stuff?
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00:19:39.599 --> 00:19:42.640
Does that make you wonder about all those cold symptoms
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00:19:42.660 --> 00:19:43.180
you've been having?
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00:19:44.259 --> 00:19:46.660
Yeah. Well, that actually makes sense to me. Maybe it's
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00:19:46.700 --> 00:19:47.440
the vape use.
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00:19:48.730 --> 00:19:49.029
Ooh.
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Spooky science.
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00:19:55.730 --> 00:20:00.089
Okay, so that is our lungs. But with vapes, scientists
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00:20:00.230 --> 00:20:04.809
are worried about something else altogether. How vapes could be
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00:20:04.869 --> 00:20:17.119
messing with your brain. And that's coming up after the break. Hey,
373
00:20:17.480 --> 00:20:19.269
it's Wendy from Science Versus, and I.
374
00:20:19.269 --> 00:20:21.730
Want to tell you about a podcast that I love,
375
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Science Friday.
376
00:20:23.009 --> 00:20:25.549
They cover all sorts of amazing things in the weird
377
00:20:25.569 --> 00:20:29.619
and wonderful world of science, from how concussions affect our
378
00:20:29.660 --> 00:20:32.720
brain to the inner secrets of a snake with a
379
00:20:32.819 --> 00:20:35.549
spider on its It's a lot of news that you
380
00:20:35.609 --> 00:20:37.970
can use and some that you can't, but you're going
381
00:20:37.990 --> 00:20:42.130
to love anyway. It's hosted by Ira Flato and Flora Lichtman,
382
00:20:42.299 --> 00:20:45.019
who is an old friend of the show and loves
383
00:20:45.079 --> 00:20:47.700
a pun as much as we do. Science Friday is
384
00:20:47.740 --> 00:20:50.349
on every day wherever you get your podcasts.
385
00:20:56.900 --> 00:20:57.319
Welcome back.
386
00:20:57.640 --> 00:20:59.799
We just looked into the science of what vaping might
387
00:20:59.839 --> 00:21:03.480
be doing to your lungs, and now we're moving north.
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00:21:03.720 --> 00:21:06.200
To what vaping is doing to your brain.
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00:21:06.599 --> 00:21:12.559
With us is comedian and high empress of vaping, Nina Oyama.
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00:21:12.839 --> 00:21:13.420
Hey, Nina.
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00:21:13.579 --> 00:21:13.940
Hello.
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00:21:14.299 --> 00:21:16.839
To find out if vapes are screwing with your brain,
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00:21:17.380 --> 00:21:20.740
we called up Melissa Herman. She's an associate professor in
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00:21:20.799 --> 00:21:24.400
pharmacology at UNC Chapel Hill, and before we dove into
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00:21:24.420 --> 00:21:24.920
the science.
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00:21:25.589 --> 00:21:27.910
I had to ask her this burning question of mine.
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00:21:28.549 --> 00:21:31.230
I saw a video on your Twitter of an elf
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00:21:31.509 --> 00:21:32.670
in your lab fridge.
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00:21:33.390 --> 00:21:37.059
Can you explain what was going on there? Yes, that
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00:21:37.140 --> 00:21:40.180
is Rigsby. He's our holiday elf.
401
00:21:41.059 --> 00:21:44.339
The lab members position him around the holidays doing different
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00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:50.269
scientific things. His name is from an electrophysiological recording rig,
403
00:21:50.420 --> 00:21:53.250
which is our favorite piece of equipment in the lab.
404
00:21:54.319 --> 00:21:56.500
But he has dabbled in immunohistochemistry.
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00:21:56.519 --> 00:21:59.200
I don't think he's been in our vape chambers, but
406
00:21:59.220 --> 00:22:00.329
maybe that's for next year.
407
00:22:02.269 --> 00:22:05.490
Okay, there's one chemical that Melissa is studying in her
408
00:22:05.529 --> 00:22:10.109
vape chamber, above all else, and it's nicotine. Yeah. So
409
00:22:10.430 --> 00:22:12.869
for a long time, people thought nicotine was pretty safe.
410
00:22:13.349 --> 00:22:16.039
It's addictive, of course. It's the thing that makes you
411
00:22:16.059 --> 00:22:19.640
want to keep vaping. But that doesn't mean it's as
412
00:22:19.759 --> 00:22:21.220
dangerous necessarily.
413
00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:21.339
Right.
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00:22:22.039 --> 00:22:25.640
But just to start, I asked Melissa about the amount
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00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:29.099
of nicotine in vapes. As a general rule, if I
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00:22:29.140 --> 00:22:33.200
took like your average vape versus your average cigarette, puffed
417
00:22:33.240 --> 00:22:35.440
each of them, which one would give me more nicotine?
418
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:40.480
The vape. Oh, really? By far. Yes. Yes.
419
00:22:41.339 --> 00:22:43.369
And there are companies that are actually designing it with
420
00:22:43.400 --> 00:22:44.400
that in mind.
421
00:22:44.619 --> 00:22:47.089
Oh, of course. This is a huge benefit, right?
422
00:22:47.150 --> 00:22:50.910
I mean, that's why they're putting all this nicotine in there, right?
423
00:22:50.970 --> 00:22:52.980
So that we keep... using their products.
424
00:22:53.269 --> 00:22:53.529
Yes.
425
00:22:54.170 --> 00:22:56.630
Yeah, so vapes can have a lot of nicotine in
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00:22:56.690 --> 00:22:59.710
them and studies have found that you can't even really
427
00:22:59.789 --> 00:23:03.170
trust what's on the packet to know just how much.
428
00:23:03.269 --> 00:23:06.829
So even there have been studies that looked into vape
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00:23:06.849 --> 00:23:11.660
products that were labelled as nicotine-free and found nicotine in
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00:23:11.900 --> 00:23:12.400
some of them.
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00:23:12.599 --> 00:23:13.519
That's terrible.
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00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:18.599
And Melissa is worried about this, yes, because nicotine itself
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00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:19.759
is addictive.
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00:23:20.740 --> 00:23:21.509
But also.
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00:23:22.109 --> 00:23:26.319
Because of this pattern that we've been documenting actually since
436
00:23:26.839 --> 00:23:27.519
the 1980s.
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00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:28.460
And it's this.
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00:23:28.579 --> 00:23:34.099
It's this link between depression and nicotine. So we started
439
00:23:34.140 --> 00:23:37.059
seeing that people with depression were more likely to be
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00:23:37.140 --> 00:23:40.910
smokers and people who smoked were more likely to later
441
00:23:41.009 --> 00:23:44.660
be diagnosed with depression. And we're actually seeing the same
442
00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:48.180
pattern with vapes. So vapers are more likely to be
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00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:53.490
diagnosed with depression and to even have suicidal thoughts compared.
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00:23:53.250 --> 00:23:54.269
To people who don't vape.
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00:23:56.269 --> 00:23:59.029
Is this something that you've been worried about or your
446
00:23:59.069 --> 00:24:02.250
friends have talked about? Because I guess I was never
447
00:24:02.329 --> 00:24:03.690
aware of this link before.
448
00:24:03.710 --> 00:24:04.579
I was not either.
449
00:24:04.700 --> 00:24:08.920
I think that I have had a pretty rocky mental
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00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:11.039
health consistently.
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00:24:11.099 --> 00:24:11.720
Like I think.
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00:24:12.420 --> 00:24:15.119
especially when I was younger, I was like so depressed.
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00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:17.000
Like I dropped out of school because I was like
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00:24:17.079 --> 00:24:19.640
too depressed to function. Like I flunked the first year
455
00:24:19.660 --> 00:24:21.759
of uni because like I couldn't get out of bed.
456
00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:26.519
Like I was pretty much in the wars well before
457
00:24:26.579 --> 00:24:30.759
I started smoking cigarettes. And so I kind of, obviously
458
00:24:30.779 --> 00:24:33.160
like this is just my personal journey, but I personally
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00:24:33.220 --> 00:24:36.500
don't think smoking cigarettes or vaping has made my mental
460
00:24:36.519 --> 00:24:39.440
health worse because it's only gotten better since I was
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00:24:39.480 --> 00:24:40.069
a teenager.
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00:24:40.640 --> 00:24:41.450
I mean, I think....
463
00:24:43.309 --> 00:24:47.000
For researchers in this space who are seeing that connection,
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00:24:47.019 --> 00:24:51.240
there's always been this question of whether the ciggies or
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00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:57.789
the nicotine caused the depression or whether people who were
466
00:24:57.849 --> 00:25:02.980
feeling crappy then started smoking. Yeah, I mean, even if
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00:25:03.019 --> 00:25:05.779
you just like think of that cliche of a 90s
468
00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:09.839
teen smoker, you know, like tough baddies sneaking a ciggy
469
00:25:10.019 --> 00:25:13.890
behind the high school gym. I guess how many of
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00:25:13.940 --> 00:25:16.930
those kids were already depressed or already going to develop
471
00:25:16.950 --> 00:25:22.769
depression and then picked up a cigarette to cope. And
472
00:25:22.829 --> 00:25:27.210
so Melissa actually tries to use rodents like mice to
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00:25:27.490 --> 00:25:28.069
study this.
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00:25:28.589 --> 00:25:31.529
I don't work with humans. I work with preclinical rodent models.
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00:25:32.049 --> 00:25:36.690
because they're free of all the cultural baggage, expectation. Rodents
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00:25:36.710 --> 00:25:40.039
don't have any understanding of the 90s. None of that
477
00:25:40.059 --> 00:25:42.559
culture comes into play. It's just biology.
478
00:25:42.900 --> 00:25:43.539
That's funny.
479
00:25:44.299 --> 00:25:47.440
They don't remember when Britney Spears had free will.
480
00:25:48.180 --> 00:25:49.160
Exactly.
481
00:25:50.039 --> 00:25:52.880
So Melissa uses rodents to try to get at this
482
00:25:52.920 --> 00:25:57.390
question of whether nicotine might be contributing to people's depression,
483
00:25:58.150 --> 00:26:00.670
or if we've just kind of got this correlation causation
484
00:26:00.769 --> 00:26:06.140
all mixed up. Now, interestingly, using rodents and cigarettes to
485
00:26:06.180 --> 00:26:09.980
try to answer this question is difficult, partly because of
486
00:26:10.119 --> 00:26:12.220
this fun fact about rodents.
487
00:26:12.700 --> 00:26:15.779
You don't see rats or mice voluntarily smoking cigarettes. They
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00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:18.799
won't do that because they understand smoke is toxic. So
489
00:26:18.819 --> 00:26:20.559
they would do everything they could to get away from it.
490
00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:22.380
Humans had no problem.
491
00:26:23.220 --> 00:26:27.400
Yeah, so rodents don't smoke, but they will vape. Now,
492
00:26:27.420 --> 00:26:30.420
they don't hold a vape. No, they don't have the
493
00:26:30.759 --> 00:26:34.480
little handsies to hold a vape. So this is where
494
00:26:34.519 --> 00:26:36.119
the vape chambers come into it.
495
00:26:36.420 --> 00:26:39.619
She has mice in plastic boxes, and then on one
496
00:26:39.660 --> 00:26:41.890
side of the box there's this little hole, and then
497
00:26:41.950 --> 00:26:43.890
if the mice poke their nose into.
498
00:26:43.730 --> 00:26:48.089
That hole, it triggers a release of the vape, and
499
00:26:48.109 --> 00:26:50.880
oh boy, oh boy do they love it.
500
00:26:51.029 --> 00:26:53.150
They literally will go over to the hole and very,
501
00:26:53.190 --> 00:26:53.960
very intentionally just.
502
00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:58.980
Oh! Okay, so here's where the video that I sent
503
00:26:59.019 --> 00:27:00.980
you comes in. You want to see it, right?
504
00:27:01.279 --> 00:27:01.960
Oh, yeah.
505
00:27:06.670 --> 00:27:10.049
Dude, they're like hotboxing these rats with vape juice. Ha ha!
506
00:27:10.859 --> 00:27:11.279
Oh, my God.
507
00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:12.200
That is exactly.
508
00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:17.069
And so using these chambers, Melissa has been seeing what
509
00:27:17.119 --> 00:27:18.809
it does to the mousy brains.
510
00:27:19.009 --> 00:27:19.250
Oh, yeah.
511
00:27:19.670 --> 00:27:21.390
So, like, there's one study that she did with male
512
00:27:21.430 --> 00:27:25.029
mice and she gave them these clouds of vape once
513
00:27:25.069 --> 00:27:28.470
a day for five days and then her team dressed
514
00:27:28.529 --> 00:27:31.869
up the mice like Mickey Mouse and they all sang together.
515
00:27:32.809 --> 00:27:33.049
Wait.
516
00:27:35.299 --> 00:27:35.470
No.
517
00:27:37.420 --> 00:27:42.299
They killed them and sliced up their brains instead. Oh, okay.
518
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:45.980
You know, you've just said, I just watched some rats vape,
519
00:27:46.200 --> 00:27:50.259
and so I was like, you know what? That's completely plausible.
520
00:27:52.619 --> 00:27:57.259
I didn't know if the joke would land, given the context, but.
521
00:27:57.940 --> 00:27:59.769
You know what would have made that joke way better?
522
00:27:59.789 --> 00:28:02.930
If you had a vape. Yeah. Okay.
523
00:28:03.789 --> 00:28:08.200
So what Melissa has found in these mice is that
524
00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:12.319
over time, there's this particular area of the brain called
525
00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:13.960
the central amygdala.
526
00:28:14.380 --> 00:28:16.579
And it does stuff like process emotions.
527
00:28:17.799 --> 00:28:21.809
And Melissa finds that when you give mice nicotine at first,
528
00:28:22.390 --> 00:28:24.670
that part of the brain kind of lights up and
529
00:28:24.710 --> 00:28:30.490
gets really excited, right? But after five days on nicotine, that's.
530
00:28:30.549 --> 00:28:35.000
Not what happens. It doesn't react well. how she would expect.
531
00:28:35.740 --> 00:28:39.900
And so Melissa is now wondering whether something similar is
532
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:46.190
happening in humans and whether basically nicotine might be affecting
533
00:28:46.569 --> 00:28:49.130
this region of our brain and might be affecting how
534
00:28:49.210 --> 00:28:51.309
we process our emotions.
535
00:28:51.390 --> 00:28:51.630
Yeah.
536
00:28:52.230 --> 00:28:54.750
Now, that research is really new right now. It's just
537
00:28:54.809 --> 00:28:55.390
in rodents.
538
00:28:55.549 --> 00:28:59.000
But there is other work that's more established that suggests
539
00:28:59.059 --> 00:29:02.019
that nicotine might be messing with a different part of
540
00:29:02.059 --> 00:29:06.910
our brain, which is called the reward system. So basically,
541
00:29:07.410 --> 00:29:10.210
there's these neurons in a part of our brain that
542
00:29:10.250 --> 00:29:13.730
will release dopamine when you do something.
543
00:29:13.509 --> 00:29:20.920
Nice, like have great sex. Or smelling a flower. That's
544
00:29:20.980 --> 00:29:22.059
nice and G-rated.
545
00:29:22.339 --> 00:29:22.559
Yes.
546
00:29:23.339 --> 00:29:23.960
Very nice.
547
00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:28.089
You smell a flower. There's a spike of dopamine. You'll
548
00:29:28.109 --> 00:29:31.170
remember the flower. You feel good about the flower. And
549
00:29:31.230 --> 00:29:34.009
most importantly, you encode the idea that that flower smelled
550
00:29:34.049 --> 00:29:36.049
good and that that was an enjoyable experience.
551
00:29:36.630 --> 00:29:39.690
Now, when you smoke or vape or just get nicotine
552
00:29:39.789 --> 00:29:43.170
into your... system, your brain kind of does something similar.
553
00:29:43.230 --> 00:29:43.430
Yeah.
554
00:29:43.710 --> 00:29:46.430
Like that is why when you take a puff of
555
00:29:46.450 --> 00:29:47.890
a vape, it might feel good.
556
00:29:47.759 --> 00:29:49.880
In the moment, right? So far, so good.
557
00:29:50.319 --> 00:29:52.559
If you, and this is where nicotine and the flower
558
00:29:52.619 --> 00:29:56.380
are very different, you smelled the flower, you presumably... went
559
00:29:56.440 --> 00:29:58.500
on about your day and remembered that that was a
560
00:29:58.539 --> 00:30:02.529
nice thing you did. Nicotine has immediate actions in the brain.
561
00:30:02.900 --> 00:30:08.150
And particularly as people continue administering nicotine, it stays there.
562
00:30:08.650 --> 00:30:12.410
Yeah. So if you are a regular vapor, all that
563
00:30:12.890 --> 00:30:16.410
puffing throughout the day would keep nicotine circulating.
564
00:30:16.089 --> 00:30:17.740
Through your blood and your brain.
565
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:22.299
And it becomes the actually like so much for your
566
00:30:22.470 --> 00:30:26.220
reward system that it kind of ends up going like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
567
00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:30.079
like this is too much dopamine. Melissa says you can
568
00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:33.029
kind of think about nicotine like a speaker that is
569
00:30:33.180 --> 00:30:35.150
blasting music into your brain.
570
00:30:35.509 --> 00:30:39.170
That system is not designed to be switched on and
571
00:30:39.289 --> 00:30:41.089
left at full volume.
572
00:30:41.789 --> 00:30:43.410
So from what we can tell.
573
00:30:44.390 --> 00:30:48.140
Yeah, the reward system then tries to adapt to this
574
00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:50.400
loud noise, to having too much dopamine.
575
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:50.759
Yeah.
576
00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:53.440
So, for example, in studies in rodents, you can see
577
00:30:53.500 --> 00:30:57.369
that their brains will become a little less responsive to nicotine.
578
00:30:57.410 --> 00:30:59.809
Like they're just trying to adapt, trying to turn that
579
00:30:59.849 --> 00:31:00.549
music down.
580
00:31:01.789 --> 00:31:05.069
And then the idea is that as this happens.
581
00:31:06.250 --> 00:31:10.150
you might get less dopamine, which could mean that you
582
00:31:10.190 --> 00:31:13.900
don't get as much enjoyment from smoking or vaping as
583
00:31:13.920 --> 00:31:18.099
you used to, but maybe it also affects other stuff.
584
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:21.579
Is it just so like when you, you know, puff
585
00:31:21.619 --> 00:31:23.869
on a cigarette, you don't feel as good as you
586
00:31:23.940 --> 00:31:25.549
used to as the first time when you puffed on
587
00:31:25.589 --> 00:31:28.869
a cigarette? Or is that like when you smell a flower,
588
00:31:29.809 --> 00:31:31.950
you know, if you've had cigarette use for two years,
589
00:31:32.450 --> 00:31:34.890
your flower enjoyment.
590
00:31:34.470 --> 00:31:35.109
Will go down?
591
00:31:35.819 --> 00:31:36.000
Yeah.
592
00:31:36.180 --> 00:31:36.339
Yeah.
593
00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:37.599
That's such a good question.
594
00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:41.789
So some researchers like Melissa think that those changes in
595
00:31:41.829 --> 00:31:45.130
the brain could mean that you don't get as much
596
00:31:45.190 --> 00:31:49.150
enjoyment from the flower either. Now, a lot of the
597
00:31:49.230 --> 00:31:53.339
basis for that, that kind of piece of this puzzle
598
00:31:53.460 --> 00:31:56.619
comes from rodent studies. And we are still working out
599
00:31:57.119 --> 00:32:00.039
what this means in people because, you know, clearly not
600
00:32:00.259 --> 00:32:04.589
everyone who vapes ends up getting depression, but we do
601
00:32:04.630 --> 00:32:07.509
see that people who vape are more likely to get
602
00:32:07.549 --> 00:32:11.809
depression than people who don't vape. And we also know
603
00:32:11.890 --> 00:32:14.750
that one of the symptoms of depression is feeling less
604
00:32:14.930 --> 00:32:20.740
joy from things that used to give you joy. So
605
00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:25.920
bottom line, when Melissa looks at the evidence and hears
606
00:32:25.960 --> 00:32:29.369
people saying things like, nicotine is safe, it's just addictive,
607
00:32:29.380 --> 00:32:30.390
she's like.
608
00:32:30.690 --> 00:32:32.769
It is not free from.
609
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:34.240
Concern.
610
00:32:34.279 --> 00:32:37.880
Yes, yes. It's not an innocent bystander here. No.
611
00:32:37.900 --> 00:32:42.880
Okay, so our last question is, does all of this
612
00:32:42.980 --> 00:32:48.029
new science around vaping suggest that it is actually.
613
00:32:47.789 --> 00:32:51.150
Worse than cigarettes? I want to know.
614
00:32:52.289 --> 00:32:56.569
So for this one, let's go back to Dr. Michael Chayton.
615
00:32:57.420 --> 00:33:00.779
So remember that study he did at the start of
616
00:33:00.819 --> 00:33:04.279
our conversation where he found that two-thirds of people who
617
00:33:04.339 --> 00:33:07.109
vaped daily had some respiratory symptoms.
618
00:33:07.329 --> 00:33:07.569
Yeah.
619
00:33:08.049 --> 00:33:08.210
Yeah.
620
00:33:08.450 --> 00:33:13.309
Well, in his study, it also captured people who smoked cigarettes,
621
00:33:14.230 --> 00:33:16.410
and he found something else in his data.
622
00:33:16.849 --> 00:33:20.200
Our first finding was that cigarettes aren't good for you.
623
00:33:20.660 --> 00:33:21.000
What?
624
00:33:21.740 --> 00:33:24.099
What? So I know it's a shocking finding.
625
00:33:24.869 --> 00:33:28.430
Yeah, so even though the people in Michael's survey were
626
00:33:28.470 --> 00:33:33.259
actually relatively light smokers, they reported more respiratory symptoms than
627
00:33:33.559 --> 00:33:35.160
anyone else on average.
628
00:33:35.720 --> 00:33:38.420
So, I mean, cigarettes are just so bad for you.
629
00:33:38.720 --> 00:33:41.759
One researcher we spoke to described smoking cigarettes as like
630
00:33:41.900 --> 00:33:45.079
putting your mouth over a car exhaust pipe.
631
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:45.940
Damn.
632
00:33:46.019 --> 00:33:46.220
Yeah.
633
00:33:46.619 --> 00:33:49.579
Estimates reckon that in the US about one third of
634
00:33:49.619 --> 00:33:53.170
the deaths from cancer are caused by ciggies. So one
635
00:33:53.269 --> 00:33:57.710
in three people who died from cancer, that's from cigarettes.
636
00:33:57.769 --> 00:33:58.970
I mean, it's just huge.
637
00:33:59.069 --> 00:34:02.269
Around the world, we're talking about millions of people dying
638
00:34:02.289 --> 00:34:06.940
each year. So even when we say that vaping is bad,
639
00:34:07.259 --> 00:34:10.199
that doesn't mean it's worse than cigarettes.
640
00:34:10.860 --> 00:34:14.699
Here's Michael. It's clearly harmful. It clearly has harms.
641
00:34:15.599 --> 00:34:18.019
But when you look at it in context of cigarettes,
642
00:34:18.239 --> 00:34:21.159
most people feel that it's very likely to be much safer.
643
00:34:21.420 --> 00:34:23.579
Yeah. So I think after we've spent like half an
644
00:34:23.599 --> 00:34:26.340
hour explaining to people the dangers of vaping, we just
645
00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:29.639
really need to stamp on this point that at least
646
00:34:29.699 --> 00:34:31.800
according to most of the data out there right now,
647
00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:35.230
vaping is still considered better than cigarettes.
648
00:34:35.750 --> 00:34:40.070
Great. So it's healthy. So here's my analogy.
649
00:34:40.389 --> 00:34:43.429
Smoking cigarettes is like getting run over by a car
650
00:34:43.489 --> 00:34:44.510
and dragged for 10 miles.
651
00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:47.780
So when we say vaping is safer than that. It's
652
00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:50.059
like just getting run over by a car.
653
00:34:50.760 --> 00:34:51.159
That's right.
654
00:34:51.179 --> 00:34:54.699
And you're not dragged for 10 miles. Exactly. Exactly. No,
655
00:34:54.739 --> 00:34:58.550
that makes sense. Did hearing all the science, like, did
656
00:34:58.610 --> 00:34:59.309
it change?
657
00:34:59.929 --> 00:35:04.389
Are you thinking about vaping differently at all?
658
00:35:04.630 --> 00:35:08.230
I think about it differently, but I'm also like, if
659
00:35:08.309 --> 00:35:09.829
the question is, am I going to stop?
660
00:35:09.849 --> 00:35:10.829
The answer is no.
661
00:35:10.869 --> 00:35:10.949
No.
662
00:35:12.019 --> 00:35:14.440
Does everything we've done together mean nothing to you, Nina?
663
00:35:14.619 --> 00:35:15.460
I can grapple.
664
00:35:15.579 --> 00:35:19.190
If you want me, I can be like, yeah, when I,
665
00:35:19.489 --> 00:35:21.969
you know, I thought I would keep vaping, but, you know,
666
00:35:22.030 --> 00:35:25.590
when I saw my vape sitting on my shelf, I
667
00:35:25.789 --> 00:35:26.869
threw it in the bin because.
668
00:35:27.519 --> 00:35:30.260
of the way that it affects my lungs. Wait, but
669
00:35:30.280 --> 00:35:31.590
don't lie, but don't lie.
670
00:35:31.829 --> 00:35:36.969
What do you want from me, Wendy?
671
00:35:37.269 --> 00:35:39.590
But why wouldn't you quit?
672
00:35:39.730 --> 00:35:44.130
Why isn't the science enough, you know, to make you
673
00:35:44.610 --> 00:35:47.260
or other mates who know the science go, all right,
674
00:35:47.530 --> 00:35:51.300
all right, I'm done? Is it not bad enough? Is
675
00:35:51.340 --> 00:35:56.809
the research too early? I think vapes are bad. But
676
00:35:56.829 --> 00:35:59.530
I also do think like alcohol is bad.
677
00:35:59.570 --> 00:36:02.989
And I think like, I do think vapes to me
678
00:36:03.010 --> 00:36:06.449
are sort of like normalized in the way that they
679
00:36:06.530 --> 00:36:09.690
are advised. It's like having a glass of wine with dinner,
680
00:36:11.289 --> 00:36:15.550
but for your lungs. And I guess when all this
681
00:36:15.590 --> 00:36:19.300
information that's presented to me is like, don't vape.
682
00:36:19.519 --> 00:36:21.440
It's like, duh.
683
00:36:22.039 --> 00:36:26.889
If I had told you that eating alcohol vegetables every
684
00:36:26.909 --> 00:36:29.769
day was actually harmful. Oh, yeah.
685
00:36:29.909 --> 00:36:31.429
I would never eat another vegetable again.
686
00:36:33.050 --> 00:36:37.599
But maybe I'm just making excuses for myself to continue vaping.
687
00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:41.820
Who knows? Thanks, Neela. Thanks for coming on the show.
688
00:36:42.380 --> 00:36:45.039
Thank you for having me. That's science versus.
689
00:36:53.610 --> 00:36:53.750
Hello?
690
00:36:54.550 --> 00:36:58.380
Hey, Nick Delrose. producer at Science Versus. Hey, Wendy.
691
00:36:58.579 --> 00:37:00.929
That was a really natural way to start a conversation,
692
00:37:00.989 --> 00:37:01.449
don't you think?
693
00:37:01.969 --> 00:37:02.230
No.
694
00:37:04.309 --> 00:37:07.909
An even more natural question is how many citations are
695
00:37:07.929 --> 00:37:08.789
in this week's episode?
696
00:37:09.349 --> 00:37:12.920
There are 142 citations.
697
00:37:12.960 --> 00:37:18.300
Oh, my God, 142 citations. That might be close to
698
00:37:18.320 --> 00:37:18.900
a record.
699
00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:23.239
If people want to read these citations, find out more
700
00:37:23.260 --> 00:37:25.289
about vaping, Where should they go?
701
00:37:25.590 --> 00:37:29.099
They can follow our link in our show notes to
702
00:37:29.159 --> 00:37:29.760
our transcript.
703
00:37:30.139 --> 00:37:30.679
Thanks, Nick.
704
00:37:31.239 --> 00:37:31.719
All right.
705
00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:32.079
Thanks, Wendy.
706
00:37:32.420 --> 00:37:32.659
Bye.
707
00:37:33.059 --> 00:37:33.260
Bye.
708
00:37:39.489 --> 00:37:42.510
Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us
709
00:37:42.550 --> 00:37:45.329
for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
710
00:37:45.369 --> 00:37:48.610
You can find us anywhere. If you are listening on Spotify,
711
00:37:48.829 --> 00:37:52.559
follow us. Press follow and then tap the bell icon
712
00:37:52.599 --> 00:37:55.840
so that you'll get episode notifications. It'll say new Science
713
00:37:55.860 --> 00:37:58.340
Versus episodes, so you'll catch us as soon as we're out.
714
00:37:59.019 --> 00:38:01.820
And also, if you want to catch us on social media,
715
00:38:01.940 --> 00:38:05.550
we're there too on Instagram. We're at science underscore VS.
716
00:38:05.789 --> 00:38:08.630
I'm on TikTok at Wendy Zuckerman. Come and say hello.
717
00:38:09.969 --> 00:38:12.869
This episode was produced by Nick Delrose, with help from me,
718
00:38:12.929 --> 00:38:16.570
Wendy Zuckerman, Joel Werner, Rose Brimler, and Michelle Dang. Our
719
00:38:16.630 --> 00:38:19.780
original vaping episode was produced by Caitlin Sorey, with help
720
00:38:19.800 --> 00:38:23.199
from Lexi Krupp and Meryl Horn. Editing by Caitlin Kenny
721
00:38:23.320 --> 00:38:27.360
and Blythe Terrell. Fact-checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and
722
00:38:27.400 --> 00:38:30.739
sound design by Bumi Hidaka and Peter Leonard. Music written
723
00:38:30.780 --> 00:38:34.119
by Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, So Wiley, Bumi Hidaka, and
724
00:38:34.199 --> 00:38:36.679
Emma Munger. A huge thanks to all of the people
725
00:38:36.739 --> 00:38:38.199
that we spoke to for this episode.
726
00:38:38.610 --> 00:38:39.409
Including Dr.
727
00:38:39.469 --> 00:38:46.289
Jamie Harmon-Boyce, Professor Charlotte Piesinger, Professor Neil Benowitz, Dr. Emily Stockings, Dr.
728
00:38:46.329 --> 00:38:52.360
Mohamed Alhamdani, Professor Nancy Rigardi, Dr. Elizabeth Stevens, Dr. Matt Springer,
729
00:38:52.639 --> 00:38:53.500
Professor Paul.
730
00:38:53.300 --> 00:38:57.179
Kenney, Dr. Yasmeen Bhatt, Dr. Sean Callaghan, Dr.
731
00:38:57.239 --> 00:39:02.360
Travis Henry, Professor Orfan Rahman, Christopher Harville, Alex Sandorf, Dr.
732
00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:03.800
James Pankow, Dr.
733
00:39:03.840 --> 00:39:09.250
Constantinos Varsalinos, Professor Lorraine Martin, Professor Moonshong Tang, Dr.
734
00:39:09.269 --> 00:39:11.630
Kevin Davidson, and Myron Rene.
735
00:39:12.650 --> 00:39:15.489
An extra thanks to Connor Duffy, the Zuckerman family, and
736
00:39:15.530 --> 00:39:16.469
Joseph Lavelle Wilson.
737
00:39:16.920 --> 00:39:18.679
I'm Wendy Zuckerman. I'll fact you next time.