Vaping is often sold as a cleaner, healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes.
But a new study shows that vapers might be getting a lot more than a nicotine hit when they take a puff from an e-cigarette.
Scientists from the University of Florida found that vape mouthpieces are swarming with harmful fungi.
With their enclosed, plastic design and frequent warming from regular use, vapes are a perfect environment for fungi to develop.
This is made much worse by the fact that the majority of users reported never cleaning their vapes.
While very few vapes harbour bacteria, more than half of the disposable vapes tested by researchers were ‘abundantly colonised’ by fungi.
Of these, over 80 per cent were capable of causing ill health, including pathogens which can cause lung diseases such as chronic bronchitis.
The most common of these species is a fungus called Cystobasidium minutum, which can cause blood infections in people with weakened immune systems.
Scientists have issued an urgent warning to vapers as they found that e-cigarette mouthpieces are ‘abundantly colonised’ by harmful fungi (stock image)
E-cigarettes work by heating a battery-powered coil submerged in liquid containing nicotine, producing a vapour that users can inhale.
Although vaping is generally regarded as safer than smoking tobacco, research into the long-term health effects is still in its infancy.
Typically, previous research has focused on the toxicity of the e-liquids themselves and the effect that exposure to the vapour has on lung cells.
For example, a study published last year found that the chemicals used to give e-liquids their sweet flavour could lead to lung damage.
The study found that exposure to flavoured vapour harmed the defensive cells which patrol our lungs and keep them free of bacteria, leading to a higher risk of infection.
However, scientists haven’t paid much attention to the microbes that might be hitching a ride into your airways along with the nicotine vapour.
To investigate this, researchers recruited 25 participants who used disposable vapes every day and took swabs of their e-cigarettes’ mouthpieces.
The scientists then cultured these samples, allowing them to grow on petri dishes, to see what microbes were lurking.
Researchers took samples from 25 vape mouthpieces and cultured them to reveal the disgusting amount of fungi that are living inside (pictured)
The vast majority of participants, a third of whom report having respiratory issues, report never cleaning their vapes. This graph shows how often each person cleans their vapes (top), and how many fungi of each type were found
This revealed that the mouthpiece of your vape is crawling with up to 35 different types of fungi, the vast majority of which have the capability to cause illness.
The samples were also compared to cultures taken from the participants’ mouths, which revealed that the pathogens weren’t coming from the individuals themselves.
That means the harmful fungi must be coming from somewhere else in the environment.
Some of these fungi may come from the air, our hands, or the general dirt around us, but others might have already been in the vape liquids when they were purchased.
Co-author Dr Jason Smith, of the Emerging Pathogens Institute, told New Scientist: ‘The residues left behind inside the vape device may provide a food source for moulds to grow.’
In their pre-print paper, the researchers argue that ‘fungal contamination of e-cigarette devices’ contributes to the development of Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
This disease includes a group of lung conditions that cause breathing difficulties, shortness of breath, and a persistent chesty cough.
In the study, a third of participants involved said that they had respiratory symptoms such as coughing.
The researchers had mice inhale the most common fungus found in vapes, Cystobasidium minutum, to see how vaping this fungus would affect their lungs. Pictures B, F, G, and H show the lung tissue of affected mice, revealing the development of chronic bronchitis
To get a better understanding of how vaping these fungi might affect people’s lungs, the researchers had mice inhale the most common pathogen, C. minutum.
Lead author Dr Borna Mehrad says: ‘We found that the fungus that was most prevalent in the vape samples caused features of chronic bronchitis in mice.’
This condition is defined as inflammation of the airways, which leads to flu-like symptoms, and is one of the conditions which lead to COPD.
The researchers urge vape users to clean their vape mouthpieces regularly to avoid the buildup of fungi.
However, they stress that there currently isn’t enough research to show that these fungi are in high enough numbers to cause illness in most users.
