# Can vaping affect the liver?



## stevie g

So a friend of a friend started vaping to get off of cigarettes. His liver started hurting so he went to the doctor and the doctor told him that vaping was causing the pain in the liver. (EDIT: IDIOT NOW SAYS IT WASN'T THE DOCTOR THAT MADE THE STATEMENT HE FOUND THE OPINION FROM A DODGY STUDY ON MICE)

Does anyone here have an opinion to this because I don't believe that and now this friend has gone back to cigarettes and he says his liver is feeling better.

I've read the studies that say that cigarettes nicotine levels in the blood are measurably higher than vaping after blood is drawn.

Trying to make sense of this doctors view point

Reactions: Like 2 | Informative 3


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## vicTor

hi how long was he vaping for ?

sounds crazy to me

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 4


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## Puff the Magic Dragon

The doctor should be asked to provide his/her reason for saying this. The doctor cannot make such a statement without giving reasons. I am sure that this 'issue" has never been mentioned on the forum. We tend to read most of the vape related research and would have seen evidence of possible liver damage. Try to find out the name of the doctor and contact details. I would like to make contact to find out whether he /she knows something important which no one else has made public.

Reactions: Like 2 | Agree 3 | Funny 1


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## Spyro

stevie g said:


> I've read the studies that say that cigarettes nicotine levels in the blood are measurably higher than vaping after blood is drawn.



I don't think this is accurate anymore with the introduction of nicotine salts.

Reactions: Agree 2


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## Elmien

Smoking is the leading cause of liver cancer: https://www.medicaldaily.com/smoking-kills-your-organs-6-major-organs-damaged-cigarette-smoke-295436

Vaping could cause an accumulation of fat in the liver that could lead to cirrhosis: https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/26/vaping-lead-liver-disease-new-study-warns-7418457/

I think your liver has a better chance with vaping.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 1


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## RichJB

There is this article about high nic levels being problematic for the liver but I doubt it would cause actual pain.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 2


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## vicTor

The liver's main job is to filter the blood coming from the digestive tract, before passing it to the rest of the body. The liver also detoxifies chemicals and metabolizes drugs. As it does so, the liver secretes bile that ends up back in the intestines. The liver also makes proteins important for blood clotting and other functions.

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1 | Informative 1


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## stevie g

Thanks for the replies dudes illI refer the "friend" on to this thread.

Reactions: Like 3


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## Silver

Thanks for bringing this up @stevie g 

I haven't heard of any major liver issues with vaping so this is a first.

My feeling would be that smoking should be worse - with the many more carcinogens

Maybe the doctor said to him "are you smoking" and he said yes I was but I am now vaping - and maybe the doctor said that he should just stop everything. (which I could understand)

I highly doubt the doctor meant that vaping would be harmful to the liver and smoking not harmful.
I wonder if the doctor knows he went back to smoking and is comfortable with that?

Very strange but am keen to hear more info about it if you manage to get more info from your friend.

Reactions: Like 2 | Agree 4


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## Grand Guru

stevie g said:


> So a friend of a friend started vaping to get off of cigarettes. His liver started hurting so he went to the doctor and the doctor told him that vaping was causing the pain in the liver.
> 
> Does anyone here have an opinion to this because I don't believe that and now this friend has gone back to cigarettes and he says his liver is feeling better.
> 
> I've read the studies that say that cigarettes nicotine levels in the blood are measurably higher than vaping after blood is drawn.
> 
> Trying to make sense of this doctors view point



3 (nicotine, VG and P.G) out of the 4 common components are treated (digested) in the liver but none of them is known to have toxic effects on it. It would have been interesting to know whether your friend went for blood tests, a liver sonar or whether the Dr threw an “opinion” out of the blue.

My advice would be that 
1. he starts vaping again and monitor whether he develops “liver” pain again and 
2. to go for a sonar in case he has gall stones or even kidney stones which may cause pain episodically.

Reactions: Like 4 | Useful 1


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## Christos

stevie g said:


> So a friend of a friend started vaping to get off of cigarettes. His liver started hurting so he went to the doctor and the doctor told him that vaping was causing the pain in the liver.
> 
> Does anyone here have an opinion to this because I don't believe that and now this friend has gone back to cigarettes and he says his liver is feeling better.
> 
> I've read the studies that say that cigarettes nicotine levels in the blood are measurably higher than vaping after blood is drawn.
> 
> Trying to make sense of this doctors view point


I do blood works yearly and liver and liver function being one of the tests.

My liver has been healthier in the last 6 years than it has been since I started the tests 7 years ago.

I'm happy to say vaping has not affected my liver in the slightest.

Reactions: Like 2 | Winner 2 | Informative 4


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## Hooked

@stevie g 

I would like to see both your friend AND his doctor on the forum. Let's have a Q & A session

Reactions: Agree 4


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## Resistance

stevie g said:


> Thanks for the replies dudes illI refer the friend on to this thread.



Hi.
Your friend most probably has an intollerance to something in the juice he vaped.
Get him to try a vg max juice before he gives up on vaping.
And I am telling you this because I suffered intollerances and it took me a while to find the problem while everyone else experienced no ill effects.

Reactions: Like 2 | Useful 1


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## Jean claude Vaaldamme

Your friends doctor's 7 year studies was paid by tobacco companies. Rather trust all the liver experts on the forum.

Reactions: Funny 1


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## stevie g

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/read-this/vaping-may-lead-to-accumulation-of-fat-in-the-liver/

This was my "friends" source of information that took him to his conclusion.

Who wants to decipher this study for a layman


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## Hooked

stevie g said:


> https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/read-this/vaping-may-lead-to-accumulation-of-fat-in-the-liver/
> 
> This was my friends source of information that took him to his conclusion.
> 
> Who wants to decipher this study for a layman



@stevie g In your first post you said, 


stevie g said:


> His liver started hurting so he went to the doctor and the doctor told him that vaping was causing the pain in the liver.



Yet now you say that the above article was "[your] friends source of information that took him to his conclusion."

My understanding then is that your friend read that article, then experienced a pain in the liver. 

So it was your friend, and not his doctor, who concluded that the pain originated from the liver?

How could your friend know that the pain is from the liver? When we experience pain we don't know exactly where the source of the pain is. It could be in the general area of a specific organ, but it doesn't mean that that organ is the cause of the pain.

Secondly, it is a common psychological occurrence to think that one is suffering from whatever medical problem was discussed. 

There's something that doesn't quite gel in your story.


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## stevie g

@Hooked Look I was asking for a friend of a friend.

This is what he presented to me. Gelling or not I'm trying to get to the bottom of it.

And yes he turned around and said it wasn't his doctor that said it today.

This is all pointless now as I've been fed broken telephone.

Frankly I don't care about this issue at all it feels like a waste of everyone's time

No good deed goes unpunished. I'll let the guy walk around thinking nonsense, should never have gotten involved in the first place it seems.

@Silver please lock or wipe this thread

Reactions: Like 1


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## Adephi

One thing you need to understand about the liver is it removes toxins from the blood through enzymes.

Alcoholics for example have increased levels of gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) that helps to break down alcohol but also other drugs and medicines like morphine. So in their blood tests you will find increased levels of GGT. The reason I mention this is that a lot of alcoholics that quit also complain about pain in the abdomen area. This could be attributed to the liver adjusting to not having to produce so much of the enzyme. This is also related to to the fatty liver disease.

In the case of smokers there are countless toxins in the smoke including nicotine. The liver helps to remove these toxins and once the toxins is not there heret is build up of the enzymes in the liver.

Also, this non-alcohol fatty liver diseases that is mentioned in the article, there is no mention of smokers having this disease. So if the nicotine is the main culprit according to them, why haven't they mentioned the fact that smokers in general have this as well?

Reactions: Informative 1


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## stevie g

Thanks for the insight @Adephi

I feel like I was led on a wild goose chase by this guy so I'm dropping the matter.

Personally I think he is talking utter bull dust and regret getting involved on the behalf of someone else.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Silver

RichJB said:


> There is this article about high nic levels being problematic for the liver but I doubt it would cause actual pain.



Thanks @RichJB 
That's an interesting find
I tried to look up the author to find the research. I found him but couldn't find the actual research study.
Am keen to find out what his study involved and see how he did it. 
Not good to hear this.

Reactions: Like 1


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## stevie g

Hooked said:


> @stevie g
> 
> I would like to see both your friend AND his doctor on the forum. Let's have a Q & A session



Nope. I couldn't care less at this point. I don't even know the person it was like I said a friend of a friend and apparently he's a former drug addict.

I regret bringing this up because it's not interesting to me anymore.

With that said I'm unwatching this thread and moving on to more productive things than playing keyboard detective.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Silver

Hi guys and gals

Please don't get upset with each other on this thread.

@stevie g - dont be upset either. You brought up a topic that was an interesting one to discuss. Although we are very pro vaping on this forum (and no-one wants to hear negative things about vaping) - I think it is vitally important to understand any potential negative aspect. We also have plenty folk on this forum who try look into things to understand it better.

@RichJB posted an interesting article and @stevie g posted a similar one above I see from Yorkshire post. Although they did the study on mice - I think its good to look into it.

I found an abstract of a study that the doctor did - around 2014/2015. Not sure if this is the study he was referring to and just giving his views on how vaping may affect the liver in humans, given the nicotine exposure - or if he did another study directly on vaping. They did inject the mice with nicotine - not sure if thats comparable to the nicotine you get from vaping - but I assume they were trying to mimic the effects of smoking - so it probably is similar.

Would love to hear Dr Farsalinos' view on this.

Found the abstract here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24830635

Here's the abstract itself


*Additive effects of nicotine and high-fat diet on hepatocellular apoptosis in mice: involvement of caspase 2 and inducible nitric oxide synthase-mediated intrinsic pathway signaling.*
Ivey R1, Desai M1, Green K1, Sinha-Hikim I1, Friedman TC1, Sinha-Hikim AP1.
*Author information*

*Abstract*
Smoking is a major risk factor for diabetes and cardiovascular disease and may contribute to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The health risk associated with smoking is exaggerated by obesity and is the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We recently demonstrated that combined treatment with nicotine and a high-fat diet (HFD) triggers greater oxidative stress, activates hepatocellular apoptosis, and exacerbates HFD-induced hepatic steatosis. Given that hepatocellular apoptosis plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of NAFLD, using this model of exacerbated hepatic steatosis, we elucidated the signal transduction pathways involved in HFD plus nicotine-induced liver cell death. Adult C57BL6 male mice were fed a normal chow diet or HFD with 60% of calories derived from fat and received twice daily IP injections of 0.75 mg/kg BW of nicotine or saline for 10 weeks. High-resolution light microscopy revealed markedly higher lipid accumulation in hepatocytes from mice received HFD plus nicotine, compared to mice on HFD alone. Addition of nicotine to HFD further resulted in an increase in the incidence of hepatocellular apoptosis and was associated with activation of caspase 2, induction of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), and perturbation of the BAX/BCL-2 ratio. Together, our data indicate the involvement of caspase 2 and iNOS-mediated apoptotic signaling in nicotine plus HFD-induced hepatocellular apoptosis. Targeting the caspase 2-mediated death pathway may have a protective role in development and progression of NAFLD.

Reactions: Like 1 | Thanks 1


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## Silver

Hi @stevie g - I have edited the thread title

I know what you were trying to say by changing it - but I think lets leave the thread with an appropriate name for future reference. If I ever want to find this thread again I will search for "liver" in thread titles and it should pop up.

Reactions: Like 2 | Agree 2


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## Hooked

stevie g said:


> @Hooked Look I was asking for a friend of a friend.
> 
> This is what he presented to me. Gelling or not I'm trying to get to the bottom of it.
> 
> And yes he turned around and said it wasn't his doctor that said it today.
> 
> This is all pointless now as I've been fed broken telephone.
> 
> Frankly I don't care about this issue at all it feels like a waste of everyone's time
> 
> No good deed goes unpunished. I'll let the guy walk around thinking nonsense, should never have gotten involved in the first place it seems.
> 
> @Silver please lock or wipe this thread



OK @stevie g You were trying to do the right thing (in posting about this on the forum) but unfortunately you were fed the wrong information by your friend: "And yes he turned around and said it wasn't his doctor that said it today." Not your fault at all!!

Reactions: Like 1


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## Hooked

Adephi said:


> One thing you need to understand about the liver is it removes toxins from the blood through enzymes.
> 
> Alcoholics for example have increased levels of gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) that helps to break down alcohol but also other drugs and medicines like morphine. So in their blood tests you will find increased levels of GGT. The reason I mention this is that a lot of alcoholics that quit also complain about pain in the abdomen area. This could be attributed to the liver adjusting to not having to produce so much of the enzyme. This is also related to to the fatty liver disease.
> 
> In the case of smokers there are countless toxins in the smoke including nicotine. The liver helps to remove these toxins and once the toxins is not there heret is build up of the enzymes in the liver.
> 
> Also, this non-alcohol fatty liver diseases that is mentioned in the article, there is no mention of smokers having this disease. So if the nicotine is the main culprit according to them, why haven't they mentioned the fact that smokers in general have this as well?



When I first moved to China I had to undergo a full medical there on arrival (they literally whisk you from the airport to the hospital) and the doctor told me that I had a fatty liver. "You drink too much! You stop drinking!" he said, fixing his beady eyes on me. What? I hardly drink, except for an Irish Coffee from time to time lol. The irony though is that I subsequently became rather fond of Chinese "wine"as they call it, which has an alcohol content of something like 70% (more or less).


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