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miércoles, 11 de febrero de 2015

E-cigarette vapor damages the immune system of mice, study finds

theverge.com – 5 de Febrero de 2015 – EEUU

E-cigarettes are being pitched as potentially safer alternatives to traditional tobacco cigarettes, but it's starting to look like they may share some of the same deleterious effects. A new study out of Johns Hopkins University looks at e-cigarettes' effects on mice, and it finds that exposure to their vapor limited of the mice's immune systems and impaired their lungs' ability to fight off viral and bacterial infections. They also found that the vapor contained harmful molecules known as free radicals. The findings were published this week in the journal PLOS One.

"THEY HAD MORE OF THE VIRUS IN THEIR LUNGS."

The research team exposed the mice to e-cigarette vapor, from the commercial brand Njoy, for two weeks. They attempted to simulate human conditions by measuring the level of nicotine in the mice's blood and matching it with the levels that occur in human smokers. After two weeks of vapor exposure, some mice were exposed to pneumonia, other mice were exposed to the flu, and others were left in fresh air. In both cases with disease exposure, the mice had more trouble fighting back: with pneumonia, the bacteria had an easier time multiplying; with the flu, the mice lost more weight — some even died.

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