SLO LIFE Magazine Oct/Nov 2018

#1
KNOW THIS WORD:
DIACETYL
Over the years, scientific words have become
popularized, things like carcinogen, and caffeine, and
metastasize. Brace yourself for a new one: Diacetyl.
This word, diacetyl, is the short version of the alphadiketone,
2,3-pentanedione, which was first used as
a flavoring agent in microwave popcorn. That was
before the workers, who diligently punched in and
out of the factory every day expertly filling those little
tri-fold microwaveable bags with kernels and their
secret sauce, started experiencing strange symptoms.
They came on slowly, but, to this day, have not gone
away: lethargy, shortness of breath, dry coughing, and
wheezing. Diacetyl is no longer allowed as a flavoring
agent for food, but the vape industry now uses it to
create all of those innocent-sounding flavors, such as
“Blueberry Cheesecake,” that our kids draw directly
into their lungs.
#2
WHAT IS
POPCORN LUNG?
The phenomenon, named for those microwave
popcorn workers, put in its simplest terms, is the
obliteration of the tiny blood vessels—alveoli—
in our lungs that do the magic that happens
when we unconsciously transfer the oxygen in
the air into oxygen in our blood. And that word,
obliteration, is appropriate, as the medical term
for popcorn lung is bronchiolitis obliterans.
Diagnosis is problematic because the symptoms
appear slowly and do not present in the same
way that traditional cigarette coughing—
smokers hack—comes on with a clear cause
and effect. In other words, “I smoked a bunch
of Camels yesterday, and today I am coughing
my brains out.” And, unlike cigarette smokers,
where research shows that abstinence for a
period of about seven years will clear the lungs,
that is not the case for diacetyl exposure. There
is no cure. The damage is permanent.
#3
FAMILY JUULS
Mention the word “jewel” in the presence of a high school teacher or
administrator and watch their reaction. Their face will likely be a boiling stew
of frustration, anger, and terror. Why so much baggage attached to such an
innocent little word? That word, jewel, is also the trendy brand name for a tiny
e-cigarette, or vaping pen, known as a JUUL. To the untrained eye, a JUUL
appears identical to the ubiquitous thumb drive, those little, portable external
hard drives that can plug into a computer’s USB port. Once used to transport
essays and book reports from home to school, those little devices, thumb
drives, are now mostly banned in high schools because teachers cannot tell
the difference between the real thing and the e-cigs. Still, they are very easy to
sneak onto campus, and unlike cigarette smoke that leaves a billowing cloud
overhead, the effect of taking a hit on a vape pen is a very fast disappearing
vapor. Ask any local high school kid, and they will tell you that they have
witnessed their classmates smoking a JUUL in class, inhaling discretely the
moment the teacher turns their back to write on the whiteboard.
74 | SLO LIFE MAGAZINE | OCT/NOV 2018