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Category: Science & Innovation

  • Young Asians Moving from Cigarettes to Vape

    Young Asians Moving from Cigarettes to Vape

    Young people in Southeast Asia are moving from smoking cigarettes to vaping and heated tobacco products (HTPs) instead, a survey of consumer research and data analytics from Milieu Insight said. It surveyed more than 18,000 legal-age adults across Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, studying their consumption trends, flavor preferences, purchase channels, reasons for use, and future adoption.

    “The study shows some key factors influencing this trend,” said Gerald Ang, Milieu Insight’s chief operating officer. “One key factor is the variety of flavor, with fruit and menthol flavor dominating consumer choice in alternative nicotine products.

    “E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products being ‘cheaper’ is also an important reason for using alternative nicotine products.”

    Even though Singapore has banned the use of alternative nicotine products, they are still prevalent among people aged 21 to 29, the survey found, with 7.8% in that age group use vapes and HTPs, while 5.7% smoke cigarettes. The study also found that in Singapore, 43% bought these products from online shopping and messaging platforms, 29% bought the alternative nicotine products from friends and family, and 19% bought them on social media platforms.

    Ang said the study shows that e-cigarette and HTP use in the region is expected to grow, as a sizeable portion of smokers indicated that they were likely to use alternative nicotine products in the next six months.

    In Vietnam, which has also banned these alternative nicotine products, 9.2% of people in the 25 to 34 age bracket are vaping. And in Malaysia, 14.8% of young people between 20 and 29 are using e-cigarettes and HTPs.

  • New Zealand Study Says Vape Not Helping End Smoking

    New Zealand Study Says Vape Not Helping End Smoking

    Health researchers in New Zealand examining the long-running Year 10s smoking study say the e-cigarette companies are wrong: vaping is not displacing smoking among young people. Researchers from the University of Auckland, Australia’s Cancer Council New South Wales and the University of Sydney’s Daffodil Center, looked at vaping and smoking trends among New Zealand adolescents.

    Published last Friday (March 21), the study analyzed 25 years of data, from 1999 to 2023, examining the potential impact of vaping on smoking trends among nearly 700,000 students aged 14 to 15 years old.

    Researchers expected to see a decline in smoking after vapes were introduced, but University of Auckland research fellow Dr. Lucy Hardie said that while youth smoking rates in New Zealand were declining steeply before vapes came on the scene in 2010, that progress has slowed.

     “What we found instead was that actually the rates of decline slowed, rather than speed up,” Hardie said. “For us, this means that potentially, young people are experimenting more, rather than less, with the advent of vaping.

     “That might be down to things like vaping being more socially acceptable, in this younger age group, and so it may not be such a leap to then start experimenting with cigarettes as well.”

    In 2023, approximately 12.6 percent of 14 to 15-year-old students in New Zealand had ever smoked, nearly double the 6.6 percent predicted in the pre-vaping era. Similarly, in 2023, around 3 percent of Year 10 students were smoking regularly, but this rate would have been just 1.8 percent had it followed its pre-vaping trend.

    The research contradicts an earlier and oft-quoted study from 2020 that suggested vaping might be displacing smoking among New Zealand youth. The new study uses the same data but drew on a much wider time period, Hardie said.

    The researchers found that vaping may have actually slowed New Zealand’s progress in preventing adolescent smoking. Meanwhile, the new research also shows the prevalence of daily vaping in New Zealand increased from 1.1 percent in 2015 to 10 percent in 2023.

  • CAPHRA Backs Evidence That Vaping Could Save Thousands of Thai Lives 

    CAPHRA Backs Evidence That Vaping Could Save Thousands of Thai Lives 

     The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) today (March 19) endorsed compelling evidence presented by Asa Saligupta, Director of ENDs Cigarette Smoke Thailand, highlighting the life-saving potential of vaping as an alternative to deadly combustible cigarettes. 

    The Bangkok Post has revealed a stark public health contradiction: while smoking cigarettes is blamed for 71,000 Thai deaths annually, there has not been a single recorded death from e-cigarette use in Thailand. Yet conventional cigarettes remain widely available while vaping products remain prohibited. 

    “The evidence from Thailand mirrors what we’ve seen across the Asia-Pacific region—policies driven by misinformation rather than science are costing lives,” said Nancy Loucas, CAPHRA Executive Coordinator. “When Public Health England concluded that vaping is approximately 95% safer than smoking cigarettes, they provided a scientific foundation that many countries have used to develop sensible harm reduction policies.” 

    CAPHRA acknowledges concerns regarding youth access but emphasizes that proper regulation—not prohibition—is the appropriate solution. “We support restrictions on marketing to young people, but banning products that could save millions of adult smokers from premature death is neither,” Loucas said. “Thailand stands at a crossroads. It can continue its failed prohibition approach, or it can join the growing number of countries following scientific evidence to implement sensible regulations that will save countless lives.”

  • Study Warns Flavored Nicotine May Be More Addictive

    Study Warns Flavored Nicotine May Be More Addictive

    Certain nicotine flavors could be more addictive than others, according to researchers from the Yale School of Medicine, who found that rats preferred the combination of flavorings and nicotine to just the flavorings or unflavored nicotine on their own. The study suggests that sweeteners play a greater role in nicotine preference for females, while flavors are more influential for males.

    Published in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research, the effects of the sweeteners sucrose and saccharin, as well as the commonly used flavor additive cinnamaldehyde (the principal chemical of cinnamon) in nicotine were tested on rats. Female rats showed the highest nicotine preference when combined with sucrose, while males preferred nicotine combined with cinnamon. They also found menthol flavoring increases oral nicotine intake in male rats but not in females.

    The study says that although flavors do not significantly impact nicotine absorption, they significantly influence user satisfaction and increase the likelihood that people will continue using nicotine products.

  • Study: E-Cigs Have No Significant Impact on Lung Function

    Study: E-Cigs Have No Significant Impact on Lung Function

    A newly published critical umbrella review in Tobacco Use Insights found that there were no statistically significant changes in respiratory function for e-cigarette (EC) users. Conducted by researchers from the Center of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR), the study highlights the absence of significant short- or medium-term respiratory changes associated with e-cigarette use, regardless of usage patterns.

    Led by Giusy Rita Maria La Rosa, Riccardo Polosa, and Renée O’Leary, the review analyzed 12 systematic reviews on e-cigarette effects, categorizing users into three groups: dual users (who smoke and vape), exclusive users (former smokers who switched to vaping), and naïve users (those who have never smoked but use e-cigarettes).

    “Studies on the latest products on the market have shown reductions in chemical emissions,” said O’Leary. “Across all user categories, there were no statistically significant changes in respiratory function. The five systematic reviews in our analysis concluded that there is no definitive evidence of harm or benefit regardless of the pattern of EC use”

    “Current data do not show significant respiratory variations associated with e-cigarette use in the short or medium term,” La Rosa added. “However, due to the lack of adequate longitudinal studies, no definitive conclusions can be drawn.”

    The researchers said their results, which vary from many others around the industry, can be explained by considering several important factors: acute studies provide data on short-term exposure to e-cigarettes and cannot be used to assess long-term effects; studies do not always account for participants’ smoking history; and individuals with low-frequency e-cigarette use are often grouped together with those who use e-cigarettes more frequently.

    Regarding the quality of the included studies, only five out of 12 reviews were rated as having high or moderate confidence in their findings. Reporting issues were common.

     “The study highlights the importance of distinguishing between different vaping behaviors in future research, as well as addressing methodological weaknesses and biases observed in many previous studies on the topic,” Polosa said. “But it allows us to state once again that vaping cannot be associated to significant changes in respiratory function.”

  • Study: Menthol Cigarettes Linked to Higher Death Risk

    Study: Menthol Cigarettes Linked to Higher Death Risk

    A study recently published in Tobacco Control journal says menthol cigarette smokers had a higher risk of dying from any health cause compared to non-menthol cigarette smokers, in what the researchers claim is the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind.

    The report said, among former smokers, those who smoked menthol cigarettes showed:

    • 12% higher risk of death from all causes
    • 16% higher risk from cardiovascular diseases
    • 13% higher risk from coronary artery disease
    •  43% higher risk from other heart diseases

    “Mortality risks were shown to be especially high for individuals who quit smoking or smoked 40 or more menthol cigarettes per day,” the study said. “In addition, Black Americans who currently smoke menthol cigarettes face an 88% elevated risk of mortality from some heart diseases compared to those smoking non-menthol cigarettes.”

    While smoking rates have declined overall, the study said menthol cigarettes continue to rise in popularity with Blacks, women, and youth. “Menthol cigarettes represented 36% of the market among major manufacturers in 2022—the highest percentage since reporting began in 1963.” The popularity of menthol extends beyond cigarettes, with vape and flavored nicotine pouches also available.

    For the report, researchers followed nearly a million people from the Cancer Prevention Study II, tracking their health over six years. Of the participants, 73,486 smoked menthol cigarettes and 281,680 smoked non-menthol cigarettes. In that time, 4,071 menthol smokers and 20,738 non-menthol smokers died.

  • Study: Vaping Does Not Help Smokers Quit

    Study: Vaping Does Not Help Smokers Quit

    E-cigarettes do not increase smoking cessation and are associated with reduced tobacco abstinence, says researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science and Moores Cancer Center at the University of California San Diego. The study, among smokers in the U.S. and published March 5 in JAMA, “refutes the common misperception among tobacco users and e-cigarette proponents” that e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking.

    “Most smokers think vaping will help you quit smoking,” John P. Pierce, Ph.D., a distinguished professor at the school and study’s co-author said. “However, this belief is not supported by science to date. While some researchers have suggested that smokers who switch to daily vaping will be more successful in quitting smoking, we studied quitting success among both daily and non-daily vapers and came up with a quite definitive answer.”

    The study analyzed data from 6,000 U.S. smokers from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study. There were 943 smokers who also vaped and by matching and comparing these to similar smokers who didn’t vape, they found smoking cessation was 4.1% lower among smokers who vaped daily and 5.3% lower among smokers who vaped occasionally.

    Researchers said that while e-cigarettes don’t have the same health consequences as smoking, they are not harmless.

    “The adverse health effects of cigarette smoking become obvious after people have smoked for 20 years,” said Pierce. “While vapes generally don’t contain the same harmful chemicals as cigarette smoke, they have other risks, and we just don’t yet know what the health consequences of vaping over 20 to 30 years will be.”

    This study was supported by the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program of the University of California Office of the President.

  • Study: E-Cigs Elevate Cancer-Causing Pathways

    Study: E-Cigs Elevate Cancer-Causing Pathways

    A new study from researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center published in Scientific Reports suggests an elevation of carcinogenic cellular signaling pathways with e-cigarette users when compared to non-users. Dongmei Li, the director of Translational Science Statistical Support Services for the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, said little is known about how exclusive e-cigarette use affects exosomal microRNAs, which regulate genes that influence cancer-causing pathways.

    By comparing exosomal microRNA profiles between exclusive e-cigarette users and non-users, the researchers identified several exosomal microRNAs that are upregulated—more active than normal—in exclusive e-cigarette users. These overactive microRNAs are involved in cancer pathways, suggesting an elevation of carcinogenic cellular signaling pathways in exclusive e-cigarette users.

    “Our results contribute significantly to understanding the potential health risks of e-cigarette use and should be considered by medical professionals and the public to protect public health,” Li said. “Our study results will spark further investigations into the impact of exclusive e-cigarette use on plasma exosomal miRNAs and other biomarkers related to cancer risks, which will help us better understand the toxicity of e-cigarette use.”

    This study was funded by an R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health

  • CORESTA to Host Tobacco Field Research Webinar

    CORESTA to Host Tobacco Field Research Webinar

    Cooperation Centre for Scientific Research Relative to Tobacco (CORESTA) announced it will host an agro-phyto webinar titled “Techniques for Successful Applied Tobacco Field Research” April 15 from 1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. CET.

    “Tobacco research spans multiple disciplines, including agronomy, plant physiology, entomology, plant pathology, and breeding, each requiring specialized knowledge and protocols,” CORESTA says of the webinar. “However, effective field research in tobacco production shares common principles and practices that ensure reliable and accurate results. This webinar will provide a comprehensive overview of the essential research methodologies for conducting field-based studies in tobacco production. By the end of the session, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the key practices related to applied field research that can be useful across various aspects of tobacco production.”

    Matthew Vann, an associate professor at North Carolina State University will introduce the seminar, followed by Mitchell Richmond, an assistant professor of plant science at the University of Tennessee speaking for 40 minutes. The final 30 minutes will be a Q&A and panel discussion moderated by Christelle Bonnet, a plant science manager at JTI.

    The registration deadline is April 14. Click here to register.

  • Researchers Developing App to Detect Starch in Tobacco Leaves

    Researchers Developing App to Detect Starch in Tobacco Leaves

    Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China have developed a low-cost, immediate, general, and high-throughput (LIGHt) total starch determination of plant leaves using smartphone colorimetry. The performance of LIGHt smartphone colorimetry repeatedly provided significant consistency compared with traditional spectrophotometry detection, which can be easily transferred into a portable, low-cost, Android-based handheld device for convenient colorimetric measurements.

    The LIGHt smartphone colorimetry returned an average relative error of 5.74%, with a relative standard deviation (RSD) ranging from 2.58 to 4.31%, a detection limit of 1.53 µg/mL, and an average recovery rate of 95.72%. 

    “While there is still slightly lower detection precision compared to traditional spectroscopic instruments like microplate readers, the method has proven its feasibility for rapid detection of starch content in tobacco powder and its potential for on-site testing in the tobacco industry due to its good reproducibility and stability,” researchers wrote. “The method does not require complex laboratory equipment or professional personnel to operate, enabling rapid on-site testing. Furthermore, the LIGHt smartphone colorimetry for starch detection resulted in a BAGI score of 80, reflecting its alignment with green chemistry principles and its high practicality.

    “The results showed that the LIGHt smartphone colorimetry is expected to effectively improve the efficiency of real-time monitoring of tobacco leaf quality. The proposed method greatly reduces detection costs and operational complexity. The LIGHt total starch determination can be extended to the detection of starch content in fruits, vegetables, and other foods.”

    Read the entire report here.