Hacker News Reader

Comment by cush | Hacker News Reader

Coffee doesn’t give you mouth cancer

Does nicotine?

No, //cancer stems from the carcinogens in the burning / heating of tobacco//. Nicotine is not cancerous in itself any more than caffeine.

I'm not a doctor though so while I might sound sure it's based on what I've read on the topic over the many years.

Edit : rightly corrected its not just heating and burning, its tobacco and others in general. But nicotine itself is not cancerous.

Chewing tobacco causes cancer

But not because of the nicotine.

Cancer also stems from non-heated tobacco because the plant itself contains carcinogens that are pressed into the skin in the mouth for example, often including lesions and such

Cancer no, but nicotine is implicated in heart disease and other cardiovascular issues.

Is that because it's a stimulant, or is there some other known mechanism? It seems like most (maybe all) stimulants I've read about are correlated with cardiovascular issues.

I think one theory is that nicotine is a vasoconstrictor. Though whether, in its pure form, it is a particularly significant one, i.e. any worse than caffeine, is really not so clear.

These kind of synthetic nicotine products aren't carcinogenic. They were originally developed as a safer replacement for the traditional Swedish practice of stuffing a bag of tobacco in your mouth, although after acquisition by Phillip Morris they've become common among people who never used tobacco in the first place. (As the article gestures towards, they are "tobacco products" under US law because of their nicotine content, even though they contain no tobacco leaf.)

they are horrendously addicting though which is the huge difference between nicotine and caffeine. Even though I love caffeine I can go days without it no problem (besides being slightly more tired). Habitual nicotine users tend to need to re-up every hour or so

I quit zyns a year ago and still crave them daily. Sooooo good and addictive and they don’t have that “it’s killing you” imperative to quit like cigarettes do

I'm not sure it is actually all that clear that pure nicotine products really are so addictive as people believe. E.g. most studies claiming such addictiveness may simply be because those that get addicted to patches / gum were already addicted to cigarettes (or other classic tobacco product) prior. See e.g. Gwern's notes on the topic.

https://gwern.net/nicotine#habit-formation

https://gwern.net/nicotine#dependence

Both of these links go to self-reported data about how addicted people feel themselves to be, which I don't think is credible at all. It's very common for addicts to falsely believe that they're not addicted and could quit whenever they want.

> Both of these links go to self-reported data about how addicted people feel themselves to be

This is an incredible and outright lie.

Actually try reading the page I linked, there are plenty of links to scientific studies, scientific reviews, and high-quality resources, as well as lots of careful notes about serious confounds in the usual studies. This includes in exactly the sections I linked.

By all means still be cautious and not careless about using the stuff, that is a perfectly sane position. But I think it is very clear that e.g. patches and gum are highly unlikely to have anything even approaching the risk profile of classic tobacco products.

Do nicotine pouches give you mouth cancer?

I don't think zyn has been studied enough to be conclusive, but it does have some negative effects similar to dip I suppose? Dip on the other hand is described as using something like 'fiberglass' that cuts your mouth so your gums can absorb the nicotine quicker, of course the tobacco industry denies this. I've only tried dip once, and it was like a kick to the face. I'll stick to casual cigar smoking (its been 4 years though!).

According to several reputable sources (cancer societies around the world), it isn't known if this is a risk yet. What are you being this on?

I'm not encouraging anyone to use these things, but we should only make claims that are based on evidence.

Given the long-term, widespread usage of coffee, is there something specific they're waiting on? Or is that an "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" thing?

Your final statement doesn't really add value without knowing that, unless you agree that we shouldn't assume other people are actually people, and not lizards in people suits until they prove, definitively, otherwise.

My mistake. I interpreted their comment to be implying that nicotine pouches do. I'm not referring to evidence for the safety of coffee, but of nicotine pouches.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com