Food for thought
A new wave of vaping products has arrived with the promise of providing an effective delivery system for the vitamins you need to stay well. But is it all smoke and mirrors?
Powders, liquids, capsules, gummies – health food stores are packed with vitamin supplements. And now we can add another delivery system: vapour.
Sold in vape retailers, as well as on Amazon, ‘wellness vapes’ are being marketed as a health-enhancer. While most traditional vapes (vaporisers or e-cigarettes) contain nicotine, wellness vapes contain vitamins, essential oils or hormones, with branding that alludes to benefits such as better focus, more energy or a solid eight hours’ sleep.
Inhaling vitamins could deliver benefits; inhaling compounds offers faster absorption into the bloodstream than swallowing them, so those vitamins could get to work faster. But vaping isn’t safe for everyone, due to the potential risks associated with it, including lung problems and difficulty breathing.
That’s before you consider the risk of toxicity – arisk that’s very real, given there is as yet no recommended dosage for some nutrients. The severity of symptoms associated with toxicity depends on the vitamin – specifically, whether it’s water- or fat-soluble. The former, such as vitamins B12 and C, are excreted in urine, so toxicity is rare (although symptoms such as diarrhoea, nausea and abdominal pains are less so). But high doses of the latter, vitamins A, D, E and K, can lead to more dangerous outcomes, such as liver toxicity – the consequences of which include liver damage, scarring and, in some cases, liver failure, which can be life-threatening.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, major concerns over the wellnessvape trend have been raised; last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warning letters to vaping companies making unproven health claims. The problem stems from th
