# Mint & Menthol Research



## Hooked (18/9/19)

https://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/news/health-studies/2019-09-17_uncool-mint-research.html

17 Sept. 2019

"Duke University School of Medicine researchers looked at daily pulegone exposure from mint and menthol eLiquids.

[...]

In their paper, Jabba and Jordt concluded: “Our analysis suggests that users of mint- and menthol-flavoured e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco are ex- posed to pulegone levels higher than the FDA considers un- acceptable for intake of synthetic pulegone in food, and higher than in smokers of combustible menthol cigarettes.”

[...]

[In criticism of the research] Professor Paul Aveyard, Professor of Behavioural Medicine at University of Oxford, said: “This study is purporting to show that vapers are consuming worrying levels of pulegone by examining the concentration of pulegone in e-liquids and cigarettes, but it is not possible from this to assess whether people who vape menthol flavours have excess exposure to pulegone._”_

_“_A study to examine whether there is a concern would measure pulegone concentrations in people who vaped, but the authors have not done this. The study seems to have reported on the pulegone concentration in e-liquids, making the unjustified assumption that all the pulegone in the e-liquid is absorbed_.”_

_“_We know, for example, that nearly all the nicotine in e-liquid is not absorbed either from cigarettes or from e-liquids and it is likely that most pulegone is not absorbed, as most of the vapour from e-cigarettes is exhaled.”

[Dr Lion Shahab, a Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology & Public Health at University College London, also criticised the research and said] “the findings are, however, limited for a number of reasons. The study did not assess actual exposure in humans which is important because exposure is not simply a function of e-liquid constituents but also of the interaction between users and how they use e-cigarettes to warm up the e-liquid. Further, the data used to derive the likely exposure profile comes from a limited number of e-liquids assessed more than five years ago; it is therefore unclear if results apply to products used nowadays. Lastly, there are no studies which have linked the constituent considered here, pulegone, to cancer in humans._”_

_“_By contrast, based on numerous studies of e-liquids, aerosols and actual exposure in humans we know that the level of exposure to constituents known to cause cancer in humans is magnitudes of order lower in e-cigarette users than in smokers. The results reported in this study need to be considered in this context.”

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