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Smoke without fire? Researchers question heated tobacco products
Heated tobacco products, or HTPs, are often confused with e-cigarettes, which heat liquid that can contain nicotine but do not involve tobacco leaf.
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E-cig’s popularity has risen in recent years, but it has been continuously dogged by concerns over its probability to introduce non-smokers to tobacco. (Shutterstock/File)
H
eated tobacco products have soared in popularity as a "smoke free" alternative to cigarettes in recent years, but a peer-reviewed report has suggested their emissions could be considered smoke -- a claim strongly rejected by the tobacco industry.
Heated tobacco products, or HTPs, are often confused with e-cigarettes, which heat liquid that can contain nicotine but do not involve tobacco leaf.
HTPs instead use a high heat to decompose tobacco, via a process called pyrolysis, which does not set it on fire or burn it, therefore avoiding creating smoke.
The most popular and widely available HTP, Philip Morris International's IQOS, is an electronic device that heats a tobacco-filled, paper-wrapped, cigarette-like stick at a temperature of up to 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit).
Last month a review of the available research by experts in pyrolysis from Britain's Nottingham University found "chemical evidence that IQOS emissions fit the definition of both an aerosol and smoke."
The paper, published in the American Chemical Society's Omega journal, was funded by the STOP anti-tobacco initiative.
Its lead author Clement Uguna said that IQOS emissions contain chemical compounds that are "in normal tobacco smoke, bush burning and wood smoke".
