What do you think of vaping? There’re two opinions on it, so you either believe that it’s safe or find it as risky as smoking. Scientists and health officials have been arguing on this question for years. Before shedding the light on some of the most important concerns relating to electronic smoking devices, we must tell you the next.
Inhaling something other than clean air can’t be risk-free for you. Though vaping supporters offer an argument that inhaling an e-liquid made of a natural substance (vegetable glycerin) cannot be bad, the opponents remind them that tobacco is also all natural. Only research and time can answer all the questions on the effects of vaping.
1. Does vapor contain any harmful chemicals?
You might have heard that vapor from best vape mods is 95% safer that smoke from a tobacco cigarette. But it still may contain potentially harmful chemicals.
A research letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine made some noise in 2015. Authors wrote that e-cigarette vapor contained unsafe levels of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.
This claim was immediately called into question by the fact that researchers used primitive devices at immoderately high voltage levels. In 2017, Creek researchers proved that an e-cig can emit a high dose of formaldehyde only when it is used to produces so-called “dry puffs” that are so nasty that no one would inhale.
Several studies proved that e-cig users are exposed to some harmful chemicals. But nobody knows if these levels exceed the permissible rate and can lead to long-term negative effects. To study this, researchers need people who started vaping at a young age and continued doing it for the rest of their lives. You can hardly find someone who has been vaping for at least 10 years and has never smoked.
2. Can vaping cause some disease?
Continuing the thought from the previous paragraph, we’ll emphasize it one more time – it is not possible to separate the outcomes caused by tobacco smoking from potential health effects from vaping.
That’s why this 2017 study is unique. Its aim was to compare the changes in health between a group of daily vapers who have never smoked and a group of people who have neither smoked nor vaped. The study took 3.5 years. The researchers found no signs of respiratory problems and changes in lung and heart functions between the two groups.
So, the health of mod vape users is not worse than the non-users’ who haven’t tried smoking. Note, that the study doesn’t exclude that vapers can face some harm in the long term.
When it comes to the risks of cancer, vaping products have potencies less than 1% of tobacco smoke, according to the latest research results published on BMJ Tobacco Control.
3. Can vaping help quit smoking?
There were several studies in 2018 alone that demonstrate that vaping is an effective way to reduce the number of cigarettes smoked daily or quit smoking completely.
A recent study conducted by British researchers shows that smokers who turn to vaping are more likely to quit. 40 vapers were interviewed on the following subjects – tobacco smoking history including quit attempts, vape use history including vaping preferences, and whether they had chosen to vape in order to drop smoking.
A lead researcher Dr. Caitlin Notley commented that vaping may lead to “long-term smoking abstinence.” Even more, it can motivate people who are not willing to stop smoking to eventually quit it as they find vaping a better option. People see vaping as a “no pressure approach to quitting”.
4. Can vaping benefit the health of ex-smokers?
Dr. Notley also mentioned that their study group reported improvement in physical well-being, including better respiratory function, smell, and smell.
There’s also substantial evidence that a complete switch to vape mods from combustible cigarettes reduces short-term negative health consequences in the lungs and heart. Vapers report feeling better after switching to e-cigarettes.
Vapor doesn’t irritate the eyes and lungs the way smoke does. Though vapor looks thicker than smoke, it quickly dissipates into the air.
5. Is vaping the step to smoking for teenagers?
A 2015 U.S. study came to the conclusion that vaping is a gateway to smoking. The research team tracked the smoking habits of 300 teenagers over 2 years. It turned out that 40% of young people who tried e-cigarettes in a previous year had also tried regular cigarettes.
Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, shared his concerns over these results. He noticed that there was no evidence that it is vaping that had prompted those teens to start experimenting with smoking. Indeed, if vaping wasn’t available, the same teenagers might almost certainly have tried smoking.
The fear that kids who vape may become smokers is understandable. But statistics say that e-cigarettes don’t contribute to the rise of smoking levels among teenagers. According to the CDC, about 4% of 12th-grade students smoked in 2017, which is quite a low percentage, especially if compared to almost 25% in 1997.
However, we shouldn’t forget that nicotine is an addictive substance. Teenagers, as well as adults, can develop addiction as most e-liquids for vape mod kits contain nicotine.
Final thoughts
Electronic smoking devices cannot be categorized as either harmful or beneficial. It all depends on certain circumstances. For example, when teens start vaping and eventually become addicted to nicotine, the e-cigs’ adverse effect is clearly a worrying concern. But if an adult heavy smoker turns to a vape box mod to stop smoking, this is an opportunity to reduce the chance of smoking-related illnesses.
About the author:
Christina Matthews, the journalist who studies the latest news in the health industry. Now she studies the effects of smoking and vaping on health and reasons for such its popularity.