Second-hand smoke from traditional cigarettes contains more than 5,000 different elements – ranging from the extremely harmful to the not-so-benign. But what about second-hand smoke from e-cigarettes?

A new study, headed up by Maciej Goniewicz, a researcher at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York, has found that  the second-hand smoke of both normal cigarettes and e-cigarettes contain nicotine, but the average concentration in e-cigarette vapor was about 10 times lower.

The authors wrote that:

The key finding of this study is that e-cigarettes emit significant amounts of nicotine but do not emit significant amounts of carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds.

Goniewicz, however, concedes that his study was limited. They were only isolating a few dangerous elements, knowing that there could be more. They’ll need to do further studies to check that there aren’t any other things like, you know, formaldehyde.

And, of course, there’s that other old chestnut – us not knowing what the long-term effects of nicotine are.

“We don’t know how to answer this question yet,” Goniewicz admitted. “Before, we never had a device that released just pure nicotine to the air.”

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[Source : International Business Times]