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E-cigarettes and vaping, how bad is it for you?

Eddie Dane

Philosopher
Eddie Dane
Joined
Aug 18, 2007
Messages
6,681
Reading up on the subject of e-cigarettes on Reddit, I found a whole community of "Vapers".
Most of them heavy two-pack-a-day smokers who are absolutely ecstatic that they've finally have found a way to get off the ciggies.

It's not healthy, obviously. But better to inhale some water vapor with nicotine than inhale cubic metres of smoke from burned plant matter, laced with formaldehyde and whatnot.

Typically, they use vapers that you can refill and they use vials of nicotine laced oil to do so. these are available in various strengths, so they can decrease the nicotine concentration over time.
In the end using 0% nicotine and only vaping substances with a taste, so just the "smoking "ritual remains.

Still, I'm curious what the health effects would be from "vaping".
I realise it is a new phenomenon, and not much info might be available.

Governments are starting to restrict the use of electronic cigarettes on health grounds. There are proposals in the Netherlands to have them sold on doctors recipe by pharmacies.
This strike me as weird, as real tobacco will still be available from the supermarket and the tobacconist.
Maybe a bit worried about losing all that tax money from the smokers?

Can anybody here shine a sceptical light on the matter?
 
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Nicotine on its own is probably carcinogenic and definitely highly addictive, so its probably not the sort of thing you want to encourage people to do that much. On the other hand, it's really no worse than caffeine or alcohol, so there does seem to be some serious cognitive dissonance going on. Unfortunately, I don't think drug laws in any country are actually based on a sensible assessment of actual harm, so expecting to see a rational argument behind regulation of e-cigarettes is probably a bit optimistic.
 
Anecdotal mainly, so not overly sceptical but I was a smoker for around 35 years. Tried giving up with varying degree and periods of success.
Early last year I tried an e cigarette, quite enjoyed it and decided to give it a go.
Part of the problem with smoking, in my opinion, is apart from being physically addicted to nicotine, a lot of smokers actually enjoy smoking - the taste, the routine, the replacement for a dummy (pacifier for those who drive on the wrong side).
So far it's been eighteen months without any real desire for a smelly, as us vapers call analogue cigarettes.
I used to wake up, cough my lungs out, have a cig and a cup of coffee, cough what was left of my lungs out and hack through the rest of the day.
That's all gone so for me, a dramatic improvement.
As far as safety goes - there have been various tests, the results seem inconclusive, but none seem to suggest that they are anywhere near as harmful as cigarettes. Wiki might not be the be all and end all but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_cigarette#Boston_University_School_of_Public_Health_study

There is actually no 'oil' in an ecig - that would be harmful - the carrier is either propylene glycol, which is used as a carrier in asthma inhalers (not the stuff used in anti freeze), glycerin, or a combination of both, nicotine, and flavouring (who knows, but reputable makers use pharmaceutical grade contents).

There are different strengths, flavours (Liquorice Rasberry Mojito anyone?) and mixtures (PG give throat hit, VG gives more vapour), although I've settled on a fairly mild, 'natural' tobacco flavour, so I can sit at home, or in the office, vape to my heart's content and bug nobody.
There may be some dangers, time will tell, but I feel much better and the cigs were probably killing me anyway.
 
Nicotine is highly addictive and is a stimulant, meaning it can damage your heart. Not sure if it's carcinogenic on its own.
 
I use e-cigarettes now and have been smoke free for a year now (thanks to JREF in a way). There's no science on the health effects of electronic cigarettes at the moment. A pilot study (it wasn't a pilot study and the author is a freakin' idiot...) found temporarily lower respiratory function within 5 minutes of use. She never used a control and her population were current smokers vs non smokers. That does not a valid pilot study make.

Electronic cigarettes reduce your exposure to combusted chemicals so in a sense they aren't themselves healthy but do not expose you to unhealthy carcinogens found in cigarettes.

Right now electronic cigarettes are in a weird place as far as the research goes. There are MANY ethical dilemmas to studying them. It's not like you provide a possible carcinogenic exposure when the outcome of interest (quitting smoking) has low clinical value compared to straight up "no smoking at all". My University wants to do a few studies but IRB approval is slow to come.
 
I read a book called 'how to give up smoking', did what it said and successfully gave up a 25-a-day habit acquired in childhood. It takes three weeks to lose the nicotine dependence (I read) then it's all in your head. Stay away from other smokers and enumerate all the benefits of giving up of which there are very many besides health. I reckon a lot of folk will not get off properly if they switch to a nicotine-based method.
 
rcfieldz said:
Now if they just made one that looked like a rolled joint.
Click to expand...

They don't look like joints, but there are e-joints now as well. I'll let you find them on your own (I can only imagine that there's a forum rule against linking to that sort of thing...)

fagin said:
There may be some dangers, time will tell, but I feel much better and the cigs were probably killing me anyway.
Click to expand...

I'm glad for you (and other people who have switched) that you almost certainly are doing yourself less harm with e-cigs vs tobacco, but in my mind it's a much bigger benefit to those around you. I'm sure that sooner or later we'll find out that you're actually exhaling a detectable level of nicotine vapor and that there is secondhand 'e-smoke' and people will make a fuss about it, but it's going to be nothing in comparison to the real thing, and our neighbors burning a pork chop on the grill will do us more secondhand harm...
 
My advice: don't turn a 1-week job into a 1-year job.

I smoked for 40 years and then quit cold turkey 3 years ago. The worst was over within a week. I call it the "overwhelming force" option. Hit fast, hit hard, and get it over with.

The problem with any kind of weaning-off method is that you drag out your addiction to nicotine, thereby risking a quagmire and eventual stalemate or defeat. As long as the addiction remains, you remain susceptible. Backslide, and all your efforts will have been in vain.

1-and-done is the way. And I mean weeks, not years. All in all, you suffer less that way.

I suggest taking a 1-week vacation from work to do the quitting. That way, you don't have the work stress and you can sleep through most of the suffering. Maybe you think I'm kidding. I'm not. There is no law of nature that says you have to be awake while you're quitting. Your body will quickly learn that sleep will get you through times of no cigarettes better than food will get you through times of no cigarettes. Your body is already adjusted to not smoking (or eating) while you sleep. So take advantage of that.
 
To any regular "vapers" here ... how does the cost work out?

I'm an obsessive smoker of ultra-skinny rollups, but I strongly suspect my habit is as much fiddling-routine as plain nicotine addiction. If e-cigs offer a safer inhalable nicotine hit and make a saving then I might give them I try.

Is Ebay trustworthy?
 
I am asking a question; not making an assertion.

Is part of the health danger of cigarettes the temperature of the gasses being inhaled?
 
I quit smoking november 19 2007, and was on nicotene lozenges for a while till they cost me three teeth, then switched to swedish snus (thanks jref!)

When obama started the "cold turkey or die" mandates, snus started to be real hard to get in hawaii, with the one obama sanctioned carrier often refusing to deliver them and I switched to vapes (thanks jref!)

So far, I havent lost any of the amazing breathing power I had after quitting smoking, and its less disgusting to the chicks than spitting out the snus anytime its make out time, not to mention far cheaper than snus and miles cheaper than nicotene lozenges.

A lot of my flavors don't even have nicotene in them, I think I'm just addicted to the act of puffing on these things
 
Here's my anecdote:

I've gone 11 months with no tobacco since switching to e-cigs. I'm using the lowest non-zero nicotine cartridges available. The thing is, I've never inhaled the vapor. The propylene glycol bothers me more than inhaling tobacco smoke ever did.

I mostly just suck on them when I'm enjoying a glass of wine. I don't carry them with me. I don't have any in my car. I don't think about it much.

I smoked 20+ a day for 40+ years. I figure that in another 13 months on the present route, I'll be able to decide whether I'm an ex-smoker or not.
 
GlennB said:
To any regular "vapers" here ... how does the cost work out?

I'm an obsessive smoker of ultra-skinny rollups, but I strongly suspect my habit is as much fiddling-routine as plain nicotine addiction. If e-cigs offer a safer inhalable nicotine hit and make a saving then I might give them I try.

Is Ebay trustworthy?
Click to expand...


It depends entirely upon how much tobacco costs. It varies from state to state in the US because of varying tax rates. I rolled my own before, which is far less expensive than buying name brand cigs where I live, so the cost saving wasn't remarkable.

There was a pertussis epidemic going around about this time last year and I caught it. I swore I'd never buy any more tobacco, and I haven't. My respiratory and related ailments are far less frequent.

ETA: I've never used Ebay.
 
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I don't know about health effects, but I've tried them... and wanted a real cigarette immediately afterwards. The ones I tried appeared to do nothing in satisfying my cravings.

My final judgment: Completely useless.

I have this weird feeling that the placebo effect may be in play for those claiming it actually works. For me, it was like trying to replace cigarettes with hard candy or something (and not necessarily hard candy with nicotine in it)... there seemed to be little relation between hitting on an e-cigarette and actual smoking... not enough to make me consider it a replacement, anyway.
 
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Aepervius said:
Scratch "probably" and put "it is" instead go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine and scroll to "carcinogen" it certainly is in some case in animals.
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Wiki said:
Historically, nicotine has not been regarded as a carcinogen and the IARC has not evaluated nicotine in its standalone form or assigned it to an official carcinogen group. While no epidemiological evidence supports that nicotine alone acts as a carcinogen in the formation of human cancer, research over the last decade has identified nicotine's carcinogenic potential in animal models and cell culture.[72][73] Nicotine has been noted to directly cause cancer through a number of different mechanisms such as the activation of MAP Kinases.[74] Indirectly, nicotine increases cholinergic signalling (and adrenergic signalling in the case of colon cancer[75]), thereby impeding apoptosis (programmed cell death), promoting tumor growth, and activating growth factors and cellular mitogenic factors such as 5-LOX, and EGF. Nicotine also promotes cancer growth by stimulating angiogenesis and neovascularization.[76][77] In one study, nicotine administered to mice with tumors caused increases in tumor size (twofold increase), metastasis (nine-fold increase), and tumor recurrence (threefold increase).[78]
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That sounds like a "probably" to me.
 
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