Electronic Cigarettes Deliver As Much Nicotine As Tobacco Cigarettes

In an article published today in the European Respiratory Journal, results from a study on electronic cigarettes show users get as much nicotine from this product as smokers usually get from tobacco cigarettes.

The study, by researchers from the Universities of Geneva and Auckland, reports levels of cotinine (a product of the degradation of nicotine by the liver) in users of electronic cigarettes.

This is the first time cotinine data among electronic cigarette users in real-life conditions are published. So far, there were only laboratory data among naive users who used this product briefly before their blood was tested for nicotine. These previously published data showed that naive users obtained little or no nicotine from electronic cigarettes.

The new research published today shows instead that experienced users (all of them former smokers), in real life conditions (not in a laboratory) get a dose of nicotine similar to the dose that smokers usually get from tobacco cigarettes.

These results are important because governments in many countries are developing regulations for electronic cigarettes (currently, some countries prohibit them, others allow them with nicotine and others without nicotine). In this context, it is very important to know, for health authorities, doctors and consumers, that electronic cigarettes can deliver as much nicotine as tobacco cigarettes.