A growing number of companies are entering the market with promises that you can use your e-cig for health reasons. They now sell nicotine-free versions that are supposed to let you vape your vitamins in a number of different great (and sometimes even organic) flavors. But is this really the right way to get your nutrition?

One of the main brands in this category, VitaCig, has a number of different options that use water vapors to deliver vitamins A, B, C, E and an enzyme complex called CoQ10. In that case, the products are disposable and come in five different varieties, depending on your goal. Other vape supplements come in cartridges that you can use in your e-cigarette.

The issue is that the health claims associated with some of these products are a bit on the flimsy side. For example, VitaCig products contain 1IU of vitamin A. That represents about 1/5000 of the daily recommended dose for the average American, according to the latest nutrition guidelines. Clearly, that amount is unlikely to provide a substantial benefit to the user. Moreover, vitamin B1 is only 1/11 of the recommended daily amount; vitamin E is 1/150th of the recommended amount, and vitamin C is only 1/750 of the amount you should be getting each day.

The doses available within the vitamin vape supplements are frequently not high enough to provide any real benefit. It appears to be a similar issue to the one that was raised in the vitamin water controversy.

The next issue regarding vitamin vape supplements has to do with inhaling the nutrients. According to American Chemical Society (ACS) member John Newsam, inhaling vitamins is not an efficient way to obtain them. The reason is that the vitamin particles must be especially tiny to be able to make their way deep into the lungs where they will be able to reach the blood vessels.

It is for this reason that most medications are not inhaled and those that are will usually be in forms that require only a very small dose or that are meant to treat the lungs (for example, using inhalers as an asthma treatment).

This suggests that while the dose of vitamins in these vape supplements is already very low, but only a fraction of that is likely to ever reach the blood stream due to the limitations associated with the inhalation method. Most doctors recommend sticking to pill supplements as they are already known to be quite effective.