This Story Behind Ecigarette Will Haunt You Forever!
While preliminary, the findings appear to be a cause for concern. One of the biggest public health risks by far is the increased rate of heart attacks associated with e-cigarette use, said Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health who was not involved in the study.
An E-cigarette is a major concern for many European countries, including Poland, where local policymakers have already outlawed and banned them to be smoked indoors and have instituted a sales tax on e-cigarettes.
The UK's health minister has previously described vaping as “smoking on nicotine” and sought to introduce harsher regulations, but this has failed to have the desired effect after EU member states voted down proposals that would have compelled EU members to introduce new regulations on the tobacco industry.
The MP represents the government's efforts to raise awareness for taxation and taxation policy, in addition to exploring and promoting the British Cancer Council's effort to raise awareness of the health risks of smoking.
According to Alexander, there are no plans to enact a similar law in the United States, even though the e-cigarette industry is currently suffering the decline of the tobacco industry as a whole, while there is a chance to replace traditional cigarettes.
The European Union's Tobacco Products Directive imposes a strong regulatory oversight on the tobacco industry in the European Union, but this regulation was intended to prevent “reckless tobacco promotion” and “diseases caused by tobacco.”
The EU commission insisted that the directive does not regulate the consumption of nicotine.
“The directive expressly refrains from applying to nicotine-containing tobacco products. They will, however, have to be progressively upgraded as specified in the regulation (…) That will bring them into line with new and safer products (…) and help them stay in step with technological innovation and improvements in the products,” the commission said in an explanation.
Despite the commissioners' assumption that e-cigarettes, shortly, will be used for tobacco cessation, they have yet to release detailed regulations to regulate their usage as a means to quit tobacco, which they say they intend to do in “due course.”
According to a study conducted by the World Health Organization, tobacco usage within the EU, more specifically, was the highest in England, with 43.2% of male citizens, and 35.4% of female citizens, being regular smokers.
In the United States, as the FDA points out, the percentage of American adult tobacco users is one of the lowest, with 14.5% of male and 15% of female tobacco users.
Most American adults in total use another harmful substance – alcohol – which is banned in all 50 states, and over which individuals have little control and responsibility.
Several studies state that e-cigarettes are an effective form of smoking cessation. In the US, e-cigarette users are 40% more likely to quit smoking compared to those who have never used e-cigarettes.
Nicolette Madden, a researcher at the George Washington University Medical Center, in Washington, DC, said that electronic cigarettes, when used as a cessation device, are much more successful than patches or gum.
In a study conducted on the use of e-cigarettes as a cessation device, the researchers found that e-cigarettes are only 95% effective for smokers who decide to try e-cigarettes. The study was published in May 2012 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Graciela Bianchini, the head of communications at an e-cigarette industry lobby, said that, while the study is true, many users use e-cigarettes to make a transition from smoking to stopping.
“As a means to quit smoking, these devices are very effective but I wouldn't even recommend using them for this purpose,” Bianchini told Sputnik.
In a study conducted by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2014, 55% of adult e-cigarette users in the US said they intend to stop smoking with the use of the device.
“What this means is that people who were heavy smokers can stop smoking cigarettes and switch to this type of alternative. In my opinion, they should use it as a means to reduce or get rid of smoking,” Bianchini added.
Despite the favorable conclusions, e-cigarettes are still heavily regulated in the US, and some states have recently introduced legislation to restrict the sale of e-cigarettes.
The FDA regulates e-cigarettes as “tobacco products,” because they resemble combustible cigarettes and the fact that they contain nicotine, deeming e-cigarettes a threat to youth.
“We can't risk losing the battle to prevent a new generation of nicotine addicts. E-cigarettes have become an almost ubiquitous – and dangerous – trend among teens. It's unacceptable for any youth, or any parent for that matter, to have a child in high school using e-cigarettes. We have to reverse this alarming trend,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a statement published on the FDA website on July 29.
E-cigarettes, however, is still less hazardous than traditional cigarettes. The vapor from a normal cigarette contains more than 4,000 chemicals, and in comparison, e-cigarettes contain only nicotine and no other harmful substances.
While some studies show that e-cigarettes may have a potential benefit as a means of smoking cessation, the FDA is working on regulating them to prohibit their sale to minors and to restrict sales in certain locations, such as convenience stores and gas stations.
US anti-smoking advocacy groups argue that e-cigarettes are just as dangerous as traditional cigarettes.
Don't smoke: are vaping liquids laced with drug-taking chemicals?
The United States anti-smoking lobby has long maintained that vaping liquid, which contains a form of nicotine known as nicotinic acid, is just as addictive as cigarettes.
Currently, e-cigarettes are not legal in many countries, and no tobacco control policies have been adopted in any of them.
The main argument of anti-smoking groups is that e-cigarettes are a gateway drug, encouraging teenagers to start smoking, even though the truth is that the majority of current e-cigarette users are in their late teens and early twenties.
Yet, the heart attack risk is significantly lower in the new study than a previous one that came to a similar conclusion, Siegel added. An earlier study found that compared to non-users, users have a 20% to 25% increased risk of a heart attack.
A more recent analysis by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service suggested that using e-cigarettes daily did not increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke.
But, Siegel said, the amount of vaping was too low to determine what the risk may be over time.
While the study looked only at cardiovascular issues, previous research has shown that the chemicals present in e-cigarette aerosols have the potential to cause lung disease, and chronic exposure has been linked to nasal, lung, and heart disease, as well as early death.
In July, Siegel and his colleague made headlines when they published a study that found that vaping could double the risk of a young person dying from an accidental opioid overdose.
A few days later, another paper published in JAMA found that young adults who vape are 35% more likely to try heroin.
That makes Siegel skeptical of the data pointing to a decrease in the use of e-cigarettes.
“The whole point of e-cigarettes is not just harmed reduction, it’s about health improvement,” he said. “If you’re still using something with potentially serious health consequences, it calls into question whether it’s worth it.”
What should smokers do?
According to Siegel, smokers thinking about giving up cigarettes should give e-cigarettes serious thought. “The big problem with conventional cigarettes is that there’s a higher risk of dying from something that’s going to kill you a year from now than there is with e-cigarettes,” he said.
“Smokers who are switching to e-cigarettes have to recognize that when they go back to conventional cigarettes they are more likely to die than they are from starting with e-cigarettes,” Siegel said.
Victoria Sanusi, an associate professor in the department of community health sciences at the City University of New York, disagrees with the notion that e-cigarettes are more dangerous than conventional cigarettes. She believes there is not enough information available to weigh the pros and cons of vaping.
“Concerning the health effects of e-cigarettes, we need to be more careful about how we assess these data,” she wrote in an email. “This type of observational study, where we have a potential influence on the results because of differences in the population being studied, is prone to limitations and conclusions that might be overblown or not supported by the evidence.”
Sanusi believes that more research needs to be done to examine the chemical components of the e-liquids in vaping products, the possible impact of these ingredients on the cardiovascular system, and how e-cigarette vapor affects bystanders.
“These studies cannot tell us if e-cigarettes are a gateway to conventional cigarettes or if they are a substitute for conventional cigarettes,” Sanusi wrote. “They can’t tell us if they help people quit conventional cigarettes or if they help people quit conventional cigarettes.”
The Food and Drug Administration currently has proposed that all e-cigarettes and vaping products be regulated under the same rules as tobacco products.
“When we look at the FDA proposal, we need to recognize that these products are going to be treated like conventional tobacco products, and there are still a lot of unknowns in terms of their health effects,” Siegel said. “So, we have to think about the regulatory environment the same way we have to think about the regulatory environment for conventional tobacco products.”
With any new product, Siegel added, it’s important to take a “long-term perspective.”
“You don’t want to just get concerned about the immediate impact or any sudden changes that we make,” he said. “And a big part of that is regulatory change. It takes a little bit of time for the regulations to catch up with the industry.”
In the meantime, Siegel's biggest lesson about the new industry he helped pioneer is not to take anything for granted.
“I think we have to just look at this as a transition,” he said. “We’re very lucky that electronic cigarettes have become something that people are enjoying a lot, and that they’re something they’re choosing to do rather than having to do.”
