Ethyl Maltol has been shown to be hazardous when combined with high levels of nicotine

April 17, 2019 1 Comment

a recent study on the toxicity of JUUL pod fluids has found.  If you're reading this you'll be happy to know exactly zero of Northland's eLiquids contain Ethyl Maltol, but unfortunately for the recently big tobacco cash infused JUUL, it appears that several of their flavored pods do in fact contain the dangerous compound. 

The purpose of this recent study was to determine flavor chemical and nicotine concentrations in the eight currently marketed pre-filled JUUL pods and to evaluate the cytotoxicity of the different flavors using in vitro assays.

Nicotine and flavor chemicals were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in pod fluids before and after vaping and in the corresponding aerosols. 59 flavor chemicals were identified in JUUL pod fluids, and all pod fluids were cytotoxic at a 1:10 dilution (10%) in the MTT and neutral red uptake assays when tested with BEAS-2B lung epithelial cells.

Most aerosols were cytotoxic in these assays at concentrations between 0.2 and 1.8%. The cytotoxicity of collected aerosol materials was highly correlated with nicotine and ethyl maltol concentrations. The study demonstrates that the concentrations of nicotine and Ethyl Maltol are high enough to be cytotoxic in acute in vitro assays, emphasizing the need to determine if JUUL products will lead to adverse health effects with chronic use.

I know there's a lot of technical jumbo in that dissection of the abstract, and it's further complicated by the question of asking what's the relative relation of harm reduction while still in comparison to combustible smoking?  Well that's just half the fun of wading through actual science and fighting against click baiting false narratives, you have to decide for yourself.  

The simple gist is that Ethyl Maltol and high concentrations of nicotine is damaging to cultured lung cells.  Researchers in this study used every available flavor of JUUL pods on these cultured cells and found that the vapor from Mint, Mango, Cucumber, Fruit, and Creme pods all produced significant toxicity.

Not surprisingly then when the flavors not containing Ethyl Maltol such as, Classic Menthol, Classic Tobacco, and Virginia Tobacco, produced no significant toxicity to cultured lung cells.

There may be inherent bias in this study as the researchers ended their paper with a statement that the aerosol levels the lung cells were exposed to were less than what they believe a JUUL user would be exposed to. Implying either that they expect even more damage to be caused in people by the use of those specific JUUL products, or they are writing narrative into their research. 

If you haven't ditched your JUUL yet, now you have one piece of solid science to make a judgement call on.  If you happen to be near one of our retail stores, we are still running our JUCK FUUL campaign; where you can trade in your JUUL and we'll give you 50% off a refillable pod system and $5 bottle of Northland Nic salts, which of course do not contain Ethyl Maltol!

What do you think about this study? Is it any wonder Altria infused JUUL with money?  Where do you think the science will take us next?

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