STUDY FINDS - The vanilla flavoring found in over half of tested e-cigarette products may be capable of disrupting cells at the earliest, most fragile stage of pregnancy. A new study published in Human Reproduction found that vanillin, the chemical behind that flavor, pushed early human embryonic stem cells off course at concentrations a model predicts could reach a pregnant woman’s bloodstream during vaping.
Vanillin shows up in fruity, sweet, and even “tobacco”-labeled e-cigarette flavors. Many pregnant women switch from cigarettes to e-cigarettes believing vaping is safer. Researchers at UC Riverside tested that assumption using lab-grown human embryonic stem cells, cells that stand in for embryo tissue during its first few weeks. They found a two-part problem: high doses killed those cells outright, while lower doses, the kind a model estimates could plausibly show up in a pregnant woman’s blood during vaping, quietly steered surviving cells away from their normal identity.