The WS-23 cooling agent has limited impact on the experiment animals at the tested dose, according to a study performed by RLX Technology and published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology.
The RLX Technology study showed that there were no deaths in any of WS-23 treated groups in the acute and subacute inhalation studies, with no remarkable changes occurred in body weight, organ weight, hematology and serum biochemistry and no toxic effects in the histopathologic analysis.
It was the first study published on the Science Citation Index (SCI) indexed journal conducted by the Chinese e-cigarette industry.
WS-23 is a well-known artificial synthesis cooling agent widely used in foods, medicines and tobaccos. As a common cooling agent in e-cigarette liquids, WS-23 has led to concerns about the inhalation toxicity with the proliferation of e-cigarettes in recent years. The study shows that at the tested dose level, inhalation of WS-23 will not bring toxic side effects to test animals.
“Product safety has always been RLX’s top concern, and it is also the direction and commitment in our research and development,” said Xingtao Jiang, head of RELX Lab, which is part of RLX Technology, in a statement. Before the study was published, RELX Lab conducted vitro tests to prove the aerosol-containing WS-23 is safe to use in the products.