Acute Effects of Electronic Cigarette Aerosol Inhalation on Vascular Function
pubs.rsna.org
pubs.rsna.org
This is what got me to personally switch away from E-Cigs. Vaping would add an additional 30-sec to 1-min per mile on my runs. I try to only use patches or gum now. Still not great but it's a lot better if you're trying to stay in shape.
That being said, if you're only two choices are cigarettes and vaping. Obviously, choose vaping.
I'd say vaping is a very good harm reduction path for smokers that hopefully leads to quitting altogether. It is definitely not harm free though. I just hope our society and laws don't go in a direction where people are pushed back into smoking.
>In a series of experiments, the researchers found that nicotine could enhance new blood vessel growth in mice whose hind limbs were artificially starved of oxygen. They also found that lung cancer cells implanted into mice grew more quickly when the mice consumed nicotine in their drinking water. Mice susceptible to developing plaque in the arteries of their hearts also experienced more rapid plaque growth when exposed to nicotine than mice who were not exposed.
>The researchers believe nicotine works by binding to a receptor on the surface of endothelial cells that recognizes acetylcholine -- a chemical that nerve cells use to communicate with each other. Endothelial cells line the interior of blood vessels throughout the body. …
> At present, it is not possible to draw a conclusion whether nicotine itself may act as a complete carcinogen.
> Although more studies on health effects of nicotine in humans are required, based on in vitro and in vivo effects of nicotine, patients should be advised not to use nicotine products during cancer treatment unless it is temporarily needed to stop tobacco smoking.
That seems like an excessively long time. I don't vape, but I have a few acquaintances who do. None vape for 30 minutes at a time - typically 5-10.
I imagine if you inhaled cold water vapor for a solid 30 minute time frame and ran, you'd see a similarly bad outcome. Doesn't mean it's bad for you.
I also work out, and often vape was I walk into the gym. I would say the thing I notice is that my heart rate is already a bit higher than I'd prefer. But once I started working out, my resting heart rate went down, and my breathing got way better. So, I'm not sure how much of that is attributed to vaping vs lack of fitness.
Overall this is an interesting topic because contrary to popular opinion many athletes use nicotine and find that it increases their performance: Nicotine [...] use is widespread amongst professional team/strength sports (e.g. American football, ice hockey, wrestling, bobsleigh, gymnastics, rugby, skiing) whereby active consumption of nicotine and nicotine-containing substances in-competition occurs in approximately 25–50% of such athletes [1].
The meta-analysis [1] found that two studies observed an ergogenic effect, one an ergolytic with the remaining seven reporting no change.
It seems as if you were trying to maximize your performance, you'll ingest nicotine in a way that doesn't go through your lungs.
I'm also curious - and maybe I missed it; it's a dense paper - that while they mentioned the primary ingredients in "bare" vape liquids, they didn't seem to mention the concentrations of each used in the study? Again, maybe I missed it...
If it wasn't mentioned, I would be curious how different percentages of each affect the outcome.
For that matter - I would also be curious how "vaping" something similar - say perhaps atomized distilled water in a nebulizer - what kind of results are seen there, too.
While it may be that vaping liquids are "bad" (and any metals from the heating coil, as the study noted), how they compare to other similar liquids might be important in determining their relative danger.
Also - whether this reported danger is warranted or not? That is, when compared to other things in day-to-day breathing, where does this fall in terms of "danger"? Is it worse than being around a camp fire or fireplace? Is it worse than breathing air in a working kitchen? Is it worse than breathing the air while taking a hot shower?
Sure - the numbers can be made to look scary - but what is the objective truth, beyond the idea that "yes, vaping even base liquids is worse than just breathing" - I think we can agree that breathing in something more than clean air is worse for you, no matter what it is. But for all we know, we're constantly breathing in microparticles of plastic and other pollution in greater rates and more often than even a heavy vaping device user.
Lots of questions and avenues that could be pursued in follow-up research on this topic, certainly. It was interesting to read about, especially as someone who occasionally vapes a caffeine-based (non-niccotine) liquid.
Do people put smoke machines up to their mouths and inhale it many times a day over many years?
People vape by choice.
Smoke machines on the other hand have more in common to going to a restaurant or bar back in the day and being subjected to other people's second hand smoke.
You go to a venue for music or something similar, and get exposed to smoke machines.
Never have I ever heard anyone say, we should go to a concert or night club because - smoke machines!
Assuming you mean running smoke machines, no they don't. Smoke machines are occasionally used, but not in most plays, let alone for hours. And even if the were, most actors rehearse for weeks or months between plays, and nobody is using a smoke machine on rehearsals, except maybe in the last few.
Unless you are defining time usage as a cost which is absurd.
Not sure if you are joking or not, but I would wager the costs of sex are actually enormous even compared to drugs. Look no further than the costs and issues surrounding the following: adoption, foster care, abortion, child support, single parent welfare rates, STDs, etc.
In theory sex is a "cost free" recreational activity, but in practice it isn't.
As I get older, "don't stick your dick in crazy" makes more and more sense. Pretty much all the STIs in my demographic can be cured with a $20 pill. And almost all of my post-nut clarity revolves around fearing becoming a father prematurely.
I grew up hearing about the archetype of the heroic man getting laid constantly. In my 30s I now meet that man all the time: he's now saddled with a kid with a woman he rarely sees while trying to date for real.
If only. HSV2 affects 1 out of 6 people, rarely shows its symptoms and can be latent for years, has a big stigma associated with it, and there's no amount of $$$ you can pay to make that go away, unfortunately. Also the occasional antibiotic-resistant variants of the $20 ones, if you get sufficiently unlucky.
Though among the people I know close enough to know this about them, nobody has HSV2 and almost none of them know somebody who has it. Meanwhile I know a dozen men stuck with accidental children with women they never wanted anything to do with.
CDC says HSV2 has 12% penetration into the population aged 14-49 but has no further demographic info. HIV is even more common yet I don't know anybody with it because I'm just not in the high risk demographic. So these just aren't part of my perception of day to day worries (perhaps incorrectly, as you would point out) compared to unwanted children.
The person I replied to made it sound like unwanted pregnancy is a solved problem which isn't even true for women, thus categorically less true for their partners.
1. 90% of people with HSV2 allegedly don't know about it, because it's not a standard STD test you'll be given unless you have an outbreak 2. People with these conditions aren't parading about it, there's no upside to it, so most just keep it to themselves and their doctors. People are afraid of being "outed". Some will go so far as not to tell the people they're hooking up with about it. (not ethically recommended / legal, but that's humans for you)
Considering all the negative health outcomes that are correlated with money (well, a lack thereof) that doesn't sound cost free to me.
I quit smoking, with the help of vaping. I was a pack-a-day Newport smoker that started on a ludicrously high 36mg nicotine level. I was down to 3mg within a year and quit entirely a year later.
This is a very common story for former smokers that switched to vaping. There is a theory in the vaping community, or maybe its an urban myth, that the lack of MAO inhibitors is what allows people who vape to essentially lose their addiction. What I can tell you is that stopping vaping after two years was painless, very much unlike attempting to cold turkey cigarettes.
Philip Morris (now known as Altria) put $13bn into Juul to do the exact opposite. The margins on vaping are higher, the current perception of vaping is that it's better than smoking, and it's way easier to get kids addicted to vaping than cigarettes.
I see too much evidence to the contrary... that big tobacco is now big vaping (which is really big nicotine).
We dont know just how bad vaping really is, it's hard to say its better than smoking, and its impossible to say its not bad for you at all.
The nicotine salts in Juul pods are a type of nicotine that supposedly feels more like a cigarette when inhaled, as opposed to other vapes that use freebase nicotine.
Philip Morris strategy to create confusion is obviously working. Don't buy from big tobacco if your goal is to quit smoking.
In a month I cut down my smoking by over half and I smoke less and less as time goes on. I find the flavours bother me though and is the main reason i haven't quit entirely. I actually enjoy the taste of cigarettes, I haven't found any ejuice I actually like the taste of it all reminds me of candy, even the ones that are supposed to taste like tobacco.
I eventually settled on a juice with a coffee caramel flavor that smelled like someone just made a cake.
Go and try several combinations in a store that is specialized. The Juul is Big Tobacco still giving you an old fashion hit of nicotine.
Edit: if you are located in Europe this was my favorite.
https://ea-sigaret.nl/e-liquid-kopen/100-vg-eliquid/vg-e-liq...
Then there's the matter of, freebasing an alkaloid makes it more bioavailable to your brain, you may be smoking lower concentrations, but your body's absorbing more nicotine per puff.
Kind of like the difference between snorting coke or smoking crack. Cocaine hydrochloride is cocaine in salt form, crack is the freebase form. Both are addictive nasty drugs, but with crack, you need less to get high, the high lasts longer and in the long term tends to really fuck people up from what I've seen.
Also, the first time I ever heard of freebase nicotine, was when I was reading about how it was added into cigarettes to increase the addictiveness and rush you get.
That cake flavoured one still sounds unappealing. I'd really prefer some kind of savoury or smokey flavour. I've never really enjoyed sweet things.
I'm not a chemist so you good be spot on in the information you provide. I'm just sharing my positive experience with freebase and hope more people can quit smoking.
Taste is such a personal thing, I don't like sweets either and this flavor was delivered by accident because the store made a mistake.
>Freebasing is a more efficient method of self-administering alkaloids via the smoking route. For example, cocaine hydrochloride decomposes at the high temperatures necessary for smoking. Free base cocaine, in which the cocaine alkaloid is "freed" from the hydrochloride salt, has a melting point of 98 ℃ and is volatile at temperatures above 90 ℃, therefore providing an active drug for smoking. After inhalation the alkaloid is absorbed into the blood stream and rapidly transported throughout the body. However, since blood is buffered with carbonate at physiological pH (near 7.4), free-base amines will be rapidly converted back into their acid form. In fact, 94.19% of cocaine will exist as the acid form under equilibrium at pH=7.4, calculated using the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation assuming a pKa of 8.61[1].
If you were vaping off one of those little pens, then 10 makes a bit more sense, and maybe even a bit low. But, those never really hit right for me. I cough when I hit a Juul though, so idk.
Smoking is one of the most harmful things you can possibly do to your body. Many people underestimate how much of a low bar being better than smoking is.
E-Cigarettes are only now becoming mainstream, and have only been in use for the better half of a decade.
We wont truly know the effects until we have a large sample size over a long period of time.
Ultimately, saying it's conclusively better for you than smoking is short sighted. We thought smoking was good for you in the 1920s...
But best available evidence says 5% right now.
I don't think it is intentionally on purpose, but it sure does seem this way sometimes.
A specific example that comes to mind: city of San Francisco banning sale of e-cigs completely, while keeping regular cigarettes just as legal as before [0].
0. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/25/7357140...
My guess is that banning cigarettes would go too far. It's unrealistic to expect cigarette smokers to quit over night and start using patches and lozenges.
It's a little more realistic to expect that people who vape to do so.
Why?
>It's a little more realistic to expect that people who vape to do so.
From personal observations, what would actually happen is that those people will just switch to smoking cigarettes.
This is absolutely true. Inhaling propylene glycol and glycerine daily for thirty years might cause you to grow three heads or have babies with 27 fingers. But the results of every reputable report I've seen until now has indicated that vaping is much, much better than smoking cigarettes.
Vaping is really hard to tax unlike cigarettes. State and local governments are addicted to cigarette tax revenue, but that has been evaporating quickly, so outlawing vaping and not cigarettes is really profitable to them, even if causing more harm overall.
https://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2019/jun/12/t...
> The CDC conducts an annual survey of tobacco use by middle and high school students, asking if they’ve used a tobacco product in the last 30 days. The most recent poll, released in February, found middle school use increased from 5.6% in 2017 to 7.2% in 2018; among high school students, it surged from 19.6% in 2017 to 27.1% last year.
> Almost all of the increase comes from e-cigarettes. Among middle school students, use rose from 3.3% in 2017 to 4.9% last year. Use nearly doubled among high schoolers, from 11.7% in 2017 to 20.8% in 2018.
> In other words, the number of high school smokers dropped by 1.2 million, while those using e-cigarettes rose by almost 3.5 million. That more than wipes out progress in reducing smoking during the last seven years.
Uk government estimates risks at 95% less than smoking which means we're still winning health wise by quite a bit.
https://www.apnews.com/1c899ae55fca41bab3cefcdc37bf6de4
> For decades, the percentage of high school and middle school students who smoked cigarettes had been declining fairly steadily. For the past three years, it has flattened, according to new numbers released Monday.
It may also encourage relapses:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-ecigarettes/vaping...
> Adults who smoke cigarettes may have an easier time cutting back or quitting altogether if they start vaping, but a new French study also suggests that vaping may make ex-smokers more likely to relapse.
“It’s not clear yet what’s going on and it’s best to not jump to any conclusions,” said David Levy, a Georgetown University researcher.
In the UK, teenage smoking is at record lows - just 16% of secondary school children have ever smoked tobacco, down from 19% in 2016. We have not seen a significant rise in youth e-cigarette use. This may have something to do with the 2014 Tobacco Products Directive, which introduced substantial new regulation on both cigarettes and e-cigarettes including restrictions on advertising.
At the moment we don't think vaping turns non-smokers into smokers. But it's complicated, especially if there are companies that are marketing vaping to young non-smokers.
I personally think vaping is a useful public health measure, but I recognise the very many years of terrible behaviour from tobacco companies and it feels like light-touch regulation doesn't work.
Every time I lower my dosage, I notice I vape 2-3 times more than usual, and after a week, I stabilise again (at around 15-20ml per day). I exclusively vape on an RDA.
Over the weekend, I was invited to go to a shisha bar. After 3-4 tokes, I was high as a kite. Hadn’t experienced such a nicotine high in a very long time.
I can’t wait to finally be off nicotine completely. I’m already noticing that I often forget my vape when leaving the house, and when I notice, I don’t really sweat it. It’s a slow process, but for me, it works.
And yes, I know that it’s possible that I might grow a 3rd arm 20 years from now. But I’m playing the odds: cigarettes will kill me dead for certain. Vaping, maybe not.
I quit chewing tobacco this way. Picked up vaping a while later for no apparent reason. Will probably quit this the same way.
To me this is up there with "I know of no one on HN who actually dislikes Javascript."
You're contradicting a mantra that is so ubiquitous that it's a bit hard to take you seriously.
People I know IRL and on Reddit (without even venturing into circlejerks like r/juul and r/vaping) think vaping is so harmless that health effects aren't even the tiniest part of the discourse while they puff on their vape pretty much every waking hour. Compare that to almost every cigarette smoker who is at least in a state of "yeah, I should quit someday." I'd be hard pressed to find someone who vapes saying that, and when it comes up it's usually just for financial reasons.
Not to say you aren't having the experience that you said you have, but rather to point out that you may be surrounded by a rather unique group.
Maybe its a fast evolving community and things have changed. I haven't touched vapes since 2016, so my involvement in the online community is zero these days. When I quit, Juul wasn't even a thing and mech mods were the norm. Everyone that talked about vaping was in the context of harm reduction, not harm elimination.
Those I do know IRL that still vape just aren't even trying to give it up, but they also weren't willing to give up cigarettes until vapes came along and took away the smells. Maybe it is also a factor of my social circles being 30+ and upper middle class now and smoking/vaping/drunkenness in general being frowned upon.
I've heard this from enough vapers that I'm starting to suspect that vaping causes paranoia. Big tobacco is happy as a clam that so many people are vaping. Cigarettes were on the decline before vaping came along and gave nicotine addictions to a new generation.
Definitely a myth, I never smoked but vaped for 2 years. I quit a few months ago because I was vaping so much I noticed some pretty bad side effects, the increase in blood pressure was real. Nicotine is highly addictive, I still feel like I want to do it and it takes willpower not to go back to it.
Currently tapering on a vape.
After just two weeks, the improvement in overall body function was amazing. Benefits continued on for months after that.
So for me it's more about helping him risk manage, getting him on vaping instead of cigarettes is "less shitty" way of getting that fix for him, even if I'm fully aware that it's not healthy in any shape or form.
It's the lesser of two evils for sure, however, nobody should pick up vaping if you aren't currently smoking cigarettes.
I don’t really buy that premise, at least for some significant definition of many (some definitely, but many?).
On the other hand, what is a cost free activity anyways? A can of Coke (sugar) is pretty bad for you, I’m glad I’ve given that up. My wife thinks the sugar free stuff I’ve switched to is still bad for me, ugh. I guess only water would be considered cost free in that context.
Normal cigarettes have established to be undisputedly harmful, whereas ecigs while possibly addictive, the long term effects of consumption are merely not well known/studied.
Despite any studies, I would be very interested to hear a theoretical assessment of the safety of ecigs.
We once thought that atherosclerosis is an old persons disease, where health habits later in life lead are what predicates plaque formation. The Army started noticing fatty streak formation(first stage of atherosclerosis)[2] in arteries of dead soldiers during autopsy, which now leads us to believe this starts in youth and progresses from there.
1) https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/vdp/2005/00000002...
2) https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/autopsy-based-study-...
It starts earlier than a lot of people thought: agreed
The primary contributor to smoking's detrimental effects on the cardiovascular system is nicotine: disagree
Mind linking to something that shows this? That doesn't agree with the results from the UK study on effects of nicotine versus smoking which puts nicotine's effects at about 5% of the risk of smoking.
I have had a BP crash I was cooking the Christmas dinner (the full works ) and accidently forgot I had taken my bp pills that morning and took a second set.
I passed out and vomited about 10 mins after sitting down to eat
It's also only a part of the addictiveness of smoking. Probably a small part, as everyone I know who has consumed nicotine in any form has no trouble without it if they vape, but often shows discomfort/restlessness if they smoke. Amazingly, this holds true for those who consume far more nicotine through vaping compared to others that get it through smoking.
The difference I've found with vaping is both a) I use a very cool setting so it's not nearly as hot as a cigarette (which you can't control the temperature of) and b) I used far less nicotine, starting from 24mg->3mg in the course of a year.
I can easily stop vaping for days at a time now without having a strong pang of nicotine dependency which I used to have.
Abstract:
Nicotine is the major neuroactive compound of tobacco, which has, by itself, weak reinforcing properties. It is known that levels of the enzymes monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) and MAO-B are reduced in the platelets and brains of smokers and that substances, other than nicotine, present in tobacco smoke have MAO-inhibitory activities. Here, we report that inhibition of MAO dramatically and specifically increases the motivation to self-administer nicotine in rats. These effects were more prominent in rats selected for high responsiveness to novelty than in rats with low responsiveness to novelty. The results suggest that the inhibition of MAO activity by compounds present in tobacco smoke may combine with nicotine to produce the intense reinforcing properties of cigarette smoking that lead to addiction.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2040350/
"Our findings indicated that more than 100 of 599 documented cigarette additives have pharmacological actions that camouflage the odor of environmental tobacco smoke emitted from cigarettes, enhance or maintain nicotine delivery, could increase the addictiveness of cigarettes, and mask symptoms and illnesses associated with smoking behaviors."
So it appears that although nicotine is mildly addictive, commercial tobacco was engineered to suppress the side effects of smoking which essentially made it much more (technically) addictive. Hence quitting tobacco is much more difficult than quitting nicotine because you are also quitting the additives which are suppressing cough and hiding the feeling of illness smoking causes.
It's not mildly addictive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_dependence#Dependenc...
A modern cigarette is not just a roll of tobacco. It's pretty much been 'bred', A-B tested, into being a drug delivery system.
This is not entirely true. I believe it can put you at risk for cardiac arrhythmia, and the risk goes up steeply the more nicotine you intake to simply cardiac arrest. I believe this is depicted in Thank You For Smoking when the protagonist is covered in nicotine patches and almost dies. It’s entirely possible that was do to BP issues but I wouldn’t dismiss it as trivial in that case.
Also if you read about the native american experience of smoking uncured tobacco, it seems like it was likely a near death shamanic experience and it did kill people occasionally.
That said, it’s rather easy to moderate your intake with the percentages, so it’s not a problem for most people (I hope).
There are MAOIs in tobacco smoke. I'm not sure that's what makes me feel calm though.
It also made me a little bit manic, and weaning off it sucked, but it worked well in general.
My mom recently switched to e-cigarettes, and she said that she still occasionally gets the urge to smoke a real cigarette. But she said the urge is a lot weaker than when she used to go prolonged periods without smoking cigarettes, such as after a long plane ride.
If you try it. make sure you get fresh stuff before you pass judgment, because it ferments inside the package if left out for too long.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/business/studying-snus-a-...
For me the addiction was partly psychological around the form factor. Using "light sabre" style vapes didn't work. However I was able to wean myself off smokes using realistic e-cigs (which I also eventually quit).
I've been smoking for a little over 20 years (since a teenager). Good luck.
But the only "study" referenced comparing smoking and nicotine was a video experiment that didn't even use humans.
Click on "how safe are e-cigarettes" which link to two studies, one by the royal physicians and one by public health England.
The one by the PHE is 118 pages and is a summary of all the available evidence as of 2015.
And the RCP does something similar in 189 pages.
They do not exclusively focus on comparing the relative harm, but that is a large section in each.
Short breath alone, which invariably follows the exposure to aggressive gases, leads to contraction of the vessels and increased heart rate, to keep up the oxygen level in vital parts.
Even if tar should not enter the blood streem in a healthy tester, which I'm not sure, the built up tar pits so to speak are cozy breeding grounds for all kinds of pathogens. Excess water in the lungs, or vice versa dry lungs impact the imunosystem as well.
Where did I say that?
I don't what UK study you're referring to, the ones I used are published in American and Middle Eastern journals.
He was going down the standard visit questionnaire and asked if i smoked, so I said yes. He put down his pen, looked me in the eye, and loudly said "STOP". He looked back at the form, picked up his pen, and we carried on.
Can you clarify? Do you mean smoking cigarettes? Or do you mean consuming nicotine? What about vaping? How about smoking marijuana?
Inhaling any burning thing is quite bad for the human organism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution#Health_effects
It got me thinking because I know someone who never drank coffee in their life and lived a pretty full life nonetheless otherwise ... they’re over 100 as of recently and still self mobile, super active, sharp as a tack. She even had quite a few children.
I consume like 4-5 actual brewed coffees per day. Am I doomed?
/bargaining
A nonlinear association between coffee consumption and CVD risk was observed in this meta-analysis. Moderate coffee consumption was inversely significantly associated with CVD risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5 cups per day, and heavy coffee consumption was not associated with elevated CVD risk.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
"Once inhaled, ultrafine particles and the oxidant species located on their surface can translocate into the vascular space (13), resulting in a state of chronic vascular inflammation and oxidative stress noxious to endothelial function."
However in the conclusion they state:
"Inhaling nicotine-free electronic cigarette aerosol transiently impacted endothelial function in healthy nonsmokers"
It sounds like in the introduction they are aware of studies that concluded the aerosol inhalation causes chronic issues with endothelial function, but they concluded that it only has a transient effect. Are they refuting those claims? Did I miss something?
Yes, we don't know what the effects of vaping are but they appear to be a decent (and possibly more addictive) alternative to tobacco smokers who can't quit.
My mother has been a smoker for a long time, and she bought a "myblu" on a whim. However, she is concrned about the need to buy small recharges, as it is obviously not environment-friendly. Moreover, she had issues with the battery (I think it's not charging anymore, or maybe charged but not producing vapor) after a couple months of extremely light use. As she finds the product unreliable (battery capacity, etc), she always have cigarette "backups".
I do not know anything about the mechanical parts used, nor the chemicals (for DIY liquid), or even the various vapes on the market.
Are there good, reputable and independent review sites or wikis on this topic? Preferably not with toxic kitchen recipes. I think a good vape could accept either standard or homemade products, with a standardized battery, and as much replaceable parts as possible.
The reviews on YouTube aren't useful because they don't usually use a device long enough for problems to become apparent. I've been using the Nord AIO 19 for several weeks now and swear by it. And it's not to be confused with the regular Nord... Which looks like the Novo and also has leaking problems.
If you're in the UK, Totally Wicked are a company that, while expensive, can be trusted. They only sell quality devices, but they're all rebranded versions of other manufacturers. They've recently struck a deal with WHSmith who will also be selling their kits (that's how trustworthy they are).
MRIs are loud and obnoxious and upleasant. If you told me that this result (observed on MRI#2) was entirely the consequence of having done MRI#1, I would find it plausible.
That’s unlikely to be surprising. Would really love to know what the impact is in smokers versus an actual cigarette.
Isn’t nicotine already known to have this effect?
It also seems clear that e-cig manufacturers are hoping to hook young non-smokers to expand their market.
Both are valuable bits of info, but "e-cigs do confirmed damage" is extremely important info from a public health perspective.
Let the state go after the businesses promoting and selling e-cigs to kids—and levy astronomical fines against them. Sponsor PSAs that scare kids away from doing it. Educate everyone on the potential risks. If these “kids” are 18, they’re adults, so let them do as they please.
Cigarettes don’t require a prescription to get hooked on them. Adults should be free to recreationally use e-cigs just as much as cigarettes, weed, alcohol, and plenty of other substances. It’s their body. Increase taxes on them to try and discourage it and pay for PSAs against vaping. Whatever. But let’s dispense with the think-of-the-children crap, and let adults be adults.
Or try taking some strychnine because it's an alkaloid like nicotine and caffeine and see how well that works out.
Since you picked coffee as an example, most of the studies I've seen indicate probably health benefits from it. Nicotine it's not.
So back in reality where we're talking about banning e-cigs; why should they be subject to a prescription?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5664775/
> Despite scientific uncertainty regarding the safety of inhaling aerosol and flavorant substances from electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) relative to inhaling smoke from traditional cigarettes, some consumers and vape shop employees suggest that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) designation of constituents provides clear evidence of overall e-cigarette safety.
> Although the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association (FEMA) has clarified that the GRAS program only assesses product safety for ingestion in food, not inhalation, public confusion appears to continue.
Nicotine isn't even on the GRAS list at all. Some of the additives (like glycerol) and flavorants are.
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/index.cfm?set=GR...
I know exactly what GRAS means. Why do you assume otherwise? I never claimed that vaping is safe; you'd have to be an idiot to make that argument. That doesn't mean you ban it.
I could have sworn it was on the list... but either way, it doesn't change the fact that nicotine is, by itself, not significantly harmful. What argument are you trying to make here?
It seems like all you want to do is nitpick and completely avoid the subject at hand. Why should nicotine and/or e-cigs be more tightly controlled than coffee, cigarettes, beef, alcohol, etc?
I "assume otherwise" because trying to bring GRAS into the discussion about vaping at all indicates a lack of understanding of what GRAS applies to.
Contrary to your assertions, nicotine isn't "not significantly harmful": https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/vdp/2005/00000002...
> Why should nicotine and/or e-cigs be more tightly controlled than coffee, cigarettes, beef, alcohol, etc?
As linked up-thread, e-cigs appear to have slowed or halted the progress of smoking cessation efforts, and are seeing substantial uptick in teens. They're a major public health danger.
Coffee does not appear to be harmful, as we previously discussed in this comments thread. Cigarettes should be further restricted alongside e-cigs. Beef isn't addictive. Alcohol abuse is a serious problem, but societal acceptance makes it a difficult to tackle one on a practical level. Whataboutism isn't a great approach to medical issues, either.
>In this paper we review these implications of nicotine use and also examine the role of nicotine in the development of several cardiovascular diseases.
That would be nice to read. I can't find anything conclusive that would suggest it is a significant risk factor such that should be outlawed in the name of protecting adults from themselves.
>As linked up-thread, e-cigs appear to have slowed or halted the progress of smoking cessation efforts, and are seeing substantial uptick in teens. They're a major public health danger.
Yep, they have, and it's a shame. That doesn't mean the correct course of action is to take it away from adults. I am all for further regulation of companies who make the liquid. I am not for banning them, scheduling them, or outlawing flavors that don't taste like crap.
I started smoking when I was very young. E-cigs are the only thing that helped me to quit. You take them away and, guess what? People go back to smoking cigarettes. Some of us just like to smoke and will always do it.
>Beef isn't addictive
You sure about that? Perhaps not chemically, but there are many examples of food addiction. Why not ban everything that is potentially harmful?
I understand that food and nicotine aren't on the same level, just as you knew heroin and nicotine aren't. It's not "whataboutism" to hold the opinion that freedoms shouldn't be handed over at the first sign of a negative affect Your argument seems to boil down to "but think of the children!".
Drug class is irrelevant in this situation.
The problem is that places are banning e-cigs, which presumably drives people back to smoking. Which is worse for everyone.
Regarding your nurse friend, it's not that surprising to me that addicted medical professionals engage in motivated reasoning related to their addictions. It seems like just another version of the classic "I'm fine; I can quit any time" routine.
Thats your nurse friend's own personal choice for their own body. The health professional aspect not being an endorsement, but maybe helps them decide what they will tolerate for their own body.
Quite a few doctors I know drink alcohol, but it doesn't mean they don't know the health risks of that activity.
Only difference between US municipalities and other markets is that it is masqueraded as an endorsement for good under a respected system of due process (even though it is often unilateral decisions by unelected officials at health agencies with delegated powers)
That is obvious. But switching the current cigarette smokers to electronic cigarettes seems clear to be a better alternative for both the smokers and the people around them.
How can this be clear without long-term usage data?
It certainly stands to reason that inhaling vaporized nicotine will be better than inhaling vaporized nicotine plus ash and tar and pesticides and whatnot.
This is mentioned a lot, but I find it questionable. I’ve never seen an ad that made me feel like Joe Camel or the Marlboro Man did when I was a kid. My teenagers haven’t ever thought vaping was cool based on ads or plenty of people doing it. This sounds too much like a general truism of capitalist enterprise—always find ways to expand your markets—while combining it with a direct accusation that it’s being done perniciously to “hook” them. Everyone who is selling anything is trying to hook people on their product, if that’s the terminology we’re using—new clothes, new cars, new TVs, the latest deals ... every company is using advertising to hook people on their products. People go into financial ruin for cars and homes and stupid stuff. Maybe we should just ban advertising to people so no company can try to hook young people on their products to expand their markets.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping....
> In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.”
Yes, we should.
Advertising works. It influences you, affects your behaviour. To extract money from you. For someone else's benefit. Without your prior informed consent.
We should ban it.
At the same time, I find it a bizarre bit of cognitive dissonance when people blame the product, and not the people in the company behind it. In most cases, at least. The product isn’t pushing itself on the public. It’s people doing that work, and people should be held responsible for it. Yes, there are bad products—but they aren’t making themselves.
It’s strange that we find it so easy to think up ways to ban a product, but never consider banning the advertising that pushes it on everyone and convinces them they just have to have it.
Let's be honest. It is great money. People do not give that up. It gets taken from them.
edit: You my have edited your comment while I was relying. The second of two sentences under Background (first section) mentions that this was a nicotine free study unlike earlier ones.
Not surprising you see it with nicotine vaping.
am I the only one who isn't surprised that someone managed to find that if you introduce something into the body that isn't generally there, that there is obviously going to be an acute response of some sort? seems sort of like a simple "you introduce a thing to your body, your body responds to it" type thing, though perhaps I misunderstood the nature of the acute systems that were measured? they just didn't seem too horribly negative to me from my reading of it. granted, that being said, im all for further testing and gathering of further evidence, as a vaping enthusiast myself i think it's quite important that science keeps studying it so that we know exactly what it does, especially over long term exposure. and perhaps maybe I'm just being unnecessarily reactive against some imagined people that might take this and say "hey look it's proof that vaping is bad for you because things happen when you do it!"
In general, I'd say that using proper capitalization and avoiding walls of text - stripping down to your actual point - would help your comments.
as for the wall of text thing, that certainly makes sense to me. i always have a tendency to write those, and i could understand why others would find them cumbersome to parse. all in all, good advice, and i highly thank you for sharing it with me. i suppose i may have to rethink how i present myself here, esp wrt the whole orthography of my posts :)
This formatting works in instant messengers because people use short discrete messages, which are visually bound in little highlighted boxes. In a paragraph you don't have the same visual aid, and it makes it harder to read.
Even if the above is not true, I am guessing that your posts are simply being ignored by many people. Walls of text with no capitalization, and extremely long sentences are very unapproachable. This will naturally push you down below comments that get up-voted.
That's not how science works. They don't just act on something because someone thinks "it's obvious". They need hard evidence because the body is very complex and requires specific experiments to show anything. It's not about what get who suprised or not surprised, this is about establishing a definitive scientific truth. And there can absolutely be a substance that you introduce into the body and there is no meaningful effect. (You can probably always measure some effect, but it could be so small that it doesn't affect anything of value.) (no downvote from me fyi)
Anecdotal story time:
My grandfather who is currently 81, has been smoking since he was 12. He grew up in a very small town, and had 6 people in his graduating class other than himself.
Around January of this year, during a visit he seemed inquisitive as to the vaping device I was using. He still at this time was smoking 1.5-2 packs a day of roll-your-own cigarettes.
The reason he still was smoking so much is he has severe health issues from being legally blind from diabetes, and having extreme back pain since he returned from the service. In his hold age the only place he can sit and relax is this very old chair that sits on his porch that for whatever reason the angle on it relieves his back pain. He sits on that porch, smoking I would say 85% of his time, and the habit of playing with cigarettes while sitting there was the biggest factor.
After inquiring about my device and having me explain it to him he wanted to buy one right away and get on the e-cig bandwagon. I was skeptical as he has a whole multitude of health issues and if I were to switch him without consultation and something were to happen the guilt would be very great and I could not live with that.
I went with him to one of his visits to the V.A. and he brought up the subject of e-cigs to his doctor. We all had a conversation that pretty much came to the conclusion that continuing to smoke cigarettes wouldn't be any better than e-cigs, and there is always a chance that the e-cig could be worse but there was nothing definitive.
I was able to get him to transition to smoking 0% nicotine juice, with a higher PV/VG ratio (from what I've gathered online in smoker forums high VG juice tends to inflame those with asthma more than the PG). He did use nicotine patches for two weeks when he came off the cigarettes.
He slipped up and did smoke about 3 cigarettes during this transition, but starting the beginning of February he has been nicotine free and smoking the e-cig.
He recently had a lung test or something where they measure your 02 etc. He had said when he was smoking his 2 packs a day that his 02 was at 65% or so, and that it had gotten up to 78% at his last test.
Now I'm not a doctor and there are probably a billion variables that are unaccounted for, however he said that his breathing is much easier and doesn't have a hard time sleeping when it is hot and humid out as much as before. For him the switch seems to be working with regards to his lungs/breathing.
As far as other issues becoming more exacerbated because of this, only time will tell I guess.
He does want to quite completely, I suggested switching to sugar free candies or something to keep his oral fixation at bay while he sits in his chair. He seemed open to the idea, but like most smokers it really is a mental game and trying to get him to change his ways is pretty tough as he is a stubborn old man.
Which is not exactly the population this paper is trying to shed light on, but thanks for sharing his experience.
He has been on/off oxygen in the past and he's at that stage where he is waiting to kick the can, and is a very lucky man who has a wife of 66 years, who still takes care of him everyday.
I can guarantee if his wife passed, he would go the next day and that he is holding on because he knows how much she loves him.
As for the ~40% of 7th and 8th graders that are vaping at my kids middle school, well, that number would hopefully decrease.