You may have heard the recent "news" linking microwave popcorn to lung problems. After a study came out earlier this week mentioning that artificial butter flavoring contains the same icky chemical as flavored e-cigs, there were lots of headlines claiming microwave popcorn is just as bad for you as smoking an e-cig. But that's not really the case.
Here's what you need to know about the study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives: Researchers found that 75% of flavored electronic cigarettes contain diacetyl, a flavoring chemical linked to severe respiratory disease. That same chemical is also found in some artificial butter popcorn flavorings.
Diacetyl is linked to bronchiolitis obliterans (aka "popcorn lung"), a lung disease in which inflammation and scarring occur in the lungs' airways. People with bronchiolitis obliterans usually suffer from severe shortness of breath and a dry cough.
"Popcorn lung" got its name after former workers in a microwave popcorn plant in Missouri developed the disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most people with the disease have had little to no benefit from receiving medical treatment, but their cough tends to get better or go away years after they're no long exposed to the diacetyl vapors.
It makes sense that people who are constantly exposed to the vapors (like workers in a microwave popcorn plant) are more likely to develop the disease. But at least one man developed it from eating too much microwavable popcorn, reported the New York Times back in 2007.
And now there's the e-cig connection. Uh...so is this something that we should be worried about? Bronchiolitis obliterans expert Cecile Rose, MD (above), a professor of medicine at National Jewish Health, says you probably shouldn't stress if you have a microwave popcorn habit.
"Eating butter-flavored microwave popcorn is not known to cause lung disease," she explains. "Inhaling the fumes containing diacetyl and other butter flavorings causes lung disease."
She points out that the man who developed popcorn lung from microwavable popcorn regularly inhaled the smell when he opened the freshly popped bag, which probably caused his disease. But, she says, most of us don't regularly inhale popcorn fumes or do it as often as he did.
Rose says there isn't a lot of scientific data that can tell us the safest way to prepare and eat microwave popcorn, but she has some advice: "Try to avoid taking deep breaths of the vapors when the heated bags are first opened, just to be safe." And while you're at it, you'll probably want to avoid e-cigs, too.