The safety of e-cigarettes has been a topic of debate over the past few years. If you’ve had trouble getting a definitive answer, a new summary of evidence may finally offer some insight.
A new review from a team at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary found both good news and bad news.
The good news
People who switched from regular cigarettes to e-cigarettes are reducing their cancer risk because they’ve cut their exposure to the more than 70 known carcinogens found in tobacco smoke. In fact, the “cancer potency” of e-cigarettes is less than 0.5% of that found in regular cigarettes.
In addition, people who smoke tobacco cigarettes have a greater risk of heart problems, so it’s easy to see why more people who smoke tobacco actually diet of cardiovascular disease than cancer. This is mainly caused by ultrafine particles entering the bloodstream when cigarette smoke is inhaled. These particles cause inflammation in the body, which hurts the circulatory system, including the heart.
Although the nicotine in e-cigarettes is addictive, it’s the substances (e.g., tar) in tobacco cigarettes that do the most harm.
Vaping has probably helped smokers reach the highest quit rates ever (in 2017). Studies have found that the No. 1 reason people have started vaping is to quit smoking tobacco cigarettes and that e-cigarettes have a high correlation to quitting rates for tobacco smokers.
The bad news
Vaping also puts ultrafine particles into the bloodstream, increasing the risk of heart disease. Plus, the vapor can cause a particular immune cell in the lung to cause inflammation and possibly block the body’s ability to clear bacteria.
Health experts are on board with vaping as a less harmful alternative to smoking, but don’t encourage people to start vaping who don’t already smoke at all. This is especially a concern with young people who have never smoked but started vaping. Studies have shown that vaping among 14- to 30-year-olds is linked to a higher chance that they’ll start smoking tobacco cigarettes later.
