British American Tobacco has said that new laboratory data has revealed that vapor from its novel hybrid tobacco heating product (THP), iFuse, and two standard THPs produced little or no effect on human cells in biological testing.
“Our results suggest that these standard THPs and our novel hybrid product have the potential to reduce smoking-related disease risks when compared with cigarette smoking,” Dr. James Murphy, head of reduced risk substantiation at BAT was quoted as saying in a note posted on the company’s website.
“However, further pre-clinical and clinical research is required to substantiate conclusive risk reduction of these products.”
‘A series of lab-based biological studies were used to assess and compare the toxicological and biological effects of exposure to vapor from the hybrid iFuse, two different standard THPs, and smoke from a 3R4F reference cigarette,’ the note said. ‘The tests looked at the general health of the cells, mutations and damage to DNA, tumor promotion, oxidative stress and wound repair, all of which are involved in development of many smoking-related diseases.
‘Results show that cigarette smoke tested positive on all counts, whereas the hybrid and standard THPs did not cause mutations or damage to DNA, and showed considerably reduced responses in the other tests. ‘Overall, the novel hybrid tobacco heating product had the least effect, showing little to no biological activity in any of the assays in which it was tested.’
The results are published today in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology (DOI: 10.1016/j.fct.2017.05.023).
‘The hybrid device, iFuse, combines the workings of an e-cigarette with a pod containing tobacco,’ the note said. ‘An e-liquid is heated to produce an aerosol that passes through the tobacco pod. The aerosol cools from around 35°C to 32°C as it passes over the tobacco, heating up the pod sufficiently to extract flavor without any direct heating of the tobacco.
‘This device operates at a very different temperature to standard THPs: THPs generally heat tobacco to between 240°C and 350°C, whereas the hybrid product heats tobacco to around 34°C.
‘These temperatures are not high enough to burn the tobacco and the resulting vapors contain far fewer and lower levels of toxicants than cigarette smoke, which can reach temperatures of over 900°C during puffing (http://ow.ly/1mag30cbv3x). The vapour produced by iFuse is similar to that produced by Vype ePen.’
BAT said that Vype ePen had been shown to have significantly reduced levels of toxicants in its vapor and that the current expert estimate was that using e-cigarettes was about 95 percent safer than was smoking cigarettes.