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‘Hybrid E-Cigarette’ Can Deliver Tobacco Flavor And Keep Health Benefits

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British American Tobacco (BAT) may have finally produced an e-cigarette that mimics the taste of tobacco while massively reducing the risks of lung cancer and smoking related diseases.

BAT has been something of a trailblazer, creating the first e-cigarettes in the world that actually contain tobacco, not just nicotine derived from the tobacco plant.

“When the device is used, a heated coil warms an e-liquid to create a vapour that is drawn over a bed of blended tobacco with every puff,” says BAT’s press release.

The cigarette giant claims the “glo iFUSE,” delivers “natural tobacco flavours without impacting the potentially reduced risk nature of the aerosol produced.”

Vaping is widely recognized to be a far safer alternative to smoking, which involves burning tobacco and sucking smoke into the user’s lungs. A study published August 2015 by Public Health England showed e-cigarettes are 95 percent safer than regular cigarettes.

There are countless e-cigarette flavors that vapers find helpful when switching from smoking, but without using actual tobacco, mimicking the flavor of regular cigarettes has proven a challenge to the industry.

BAT is attempting to bridge this gap in the market by using tobacco and hopefully retaining the safety advantages of e-cigarettes.

“E-cigarettes have proven hugely popular, but one size does not fit all, which is why we are developing a range of innovative tobacco and nicotine products, in addition to e-cigarettes, to give consumers a greater choice of less risky products,” said Dr. Ian Fearon, principal scientist at British American Tobacco.

“Tobacco flavours were detectable,” said BAT. “And a comprehensive chemical comparison revealed that the vapour produced was almost indistinguishable from the parent e-cig vapour, which suggests that the tobacco blend is not adding any toxicants.”

BAT measured twenty-nine compounds on a per-puff basis. “A reduction of at least 98 percent for all 29 compounds was recorded for both glo iFUSE and Vype ePen, compared to the reference cigarette.”

Aerosol Emission Abundance Compared against a Reference Cigarette (Credit: British American Tobacco)

“In most cases, the vapour produced by the hybrid product, glo iFUSE, was indistinguishable from that produced by the e-cigarette,” BAT add.

The devices are so new there has been almost no testing on their health effects and whether they are as safe as mainstream e-cigarettes and vape pens. Researchers will no doubt want to verify BAT’s claims to check whether the glo iFUSE can be considered a substantially safer alternative to combustible tobacco.

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