Some days are just more stressful than others for Nikki Walter.
She now depends on a diffuser to give her an extra boost to get through the day.
“I feel like I have more energy. I know that I can go through the day without a nap.”
She inhales extra b12 into her body through the diffuser, that’s a bit different from the traditional e-cigarette cartridges well-known for delivering nicotine.
“It is one of the newest fads in vaping… it is the vaping of vitamins… and like every new fad, there are two questions: does it do any good and does it do any harm?”
The American Lung Association’s senior scientific advisor, Dr. Norman Edelman says a whole lot more research is required to truly answer those questions.
Companies selling them claim they’re better at getting the good stuff into your body than using pills or shots.
Dr. Edelman says not necessarily; “The question is do they get into your bloodstream and do the job of vitamins? The answer is we don't know. I mean there is little to no scientific evidence on that topic.”
There is some evidence b12 may get into the bloodstream from the lungs, but Dr. Edelman says that scientific study is decades old.
Breathe One company behind a b12 diffuser tells us it is commissioning a clinical study to further validate previous findings.
Dr. Edelman says getting too much of Vitamins A, D and E could pose new problems;
“Those vitamins tend to stay in your body much longer than the other vitamins, and an excessive amount of those vitamins can cause problems.”
And Dr. Edelman says there’s no way to know yet whether the vitamin vapes can cause long-term damage to your lungs.
These vitamin vapes have adult fans, often athletes, like Nikki, who says she wouldn’t consider vaping anything else, but believes it’s well worth a try.
The FDA says a vitamin product for inhalation cannot be legally marketed as a dietary supplement.
Generally, the FDA would consider any vitamin vape product, intended to affect the structure or function of the body or intended to treat, prevent, or cure disease to be an unapproved drug.
