World No Tobacco Day: 'Variety of weird conditions' associated with some e-cigarette flavours, says expert

CAPE TOWN - People across the globe are marking World No Tobacco Day on Saturday, under the theme 'Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products'. 

While there's extensive research on traditional tobacco products like cigarettes, vaping and e-cigarettes do not have as much long-term research on their effects.

This as alternative nicotine products, such as vapes or Zyns, have been reportedly creating new and fatal diseases.  

Leading pulmonologist at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Professor Richard Van Zyl, said some flavours in e-cigarettes have been found to be linked to new conditions. 

"The flavourants in e-cigarettes aren't there in tobacco cigarettes. So, we’re seeing a variety of weird conditions, you may have heard of something called popcorn lung, which is specifically related to butter flavourant diacetyl, which has been seen in some e-cigarettes, not all e-cigarettes, so it's a weird combination of diseases because of the flavourant."

Van Zyl said that the diacetyl flavourant causes inflammation in the lungs.  

"So popcorn lung, it gets its name from diacetyl, the flavourant of butter popcorn, so that's where the popcorn part comes from, because it was found in workers in a popcorn factory, that's where it gets its name from. What it is because of this specific flavourant in butter flavour, the diacetyl flavourant causes an intense inflammation in the lungs.”    

He further explained, "So the lungs in a sense fill up with inflammation, and so you can't breathe, and it is often fatal, which is completely different from cigarettes which slowly damage your lungs. Thankfully, popcorn lung is very, very rare, but it is one of the weird things we have seen with electronic cigarettes.”