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E-cigarettes 'Potentially As Harmful As Tobacco Cigarettes' (uconn.edu)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A study by chemists at the University of Connecticut offers new evidence that electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are potentially as harmful as tobacco cigarettes. Using a new low-cost, 3-D printed testing device, UConn researchers found that e-cigarettes loaded with a nicotine-based liquid are potentially as harmful as unfiltered cigarettes when it comes to causing DNA damage. The researchers also found that vapor from non-nicotine e-cigarettes caused as much DNA damage as filtered cigarettes, possibly due to the many chemical additives present in e-cigarette vapors. Cellular mutations caused by DNA damage can lead to cancer.
E-Cigarettes don't have any tar, which is truly nasty stuff, and that makes them better than tobacco. But I am willing to believe that they are bad for you. Nicotine is fairly nasty (and highly addictive) on its own.
I have to wonder if the simpler non-nicotine versions are anywhere near as harmful. Food-grade vegetable glycerine and peppermint oil just don't scream, "I am chemical death" to me, but what do I know.
I had a sucky sig.
But it's the best thing you'll ever do for your health, and to not be beholden to a drug is a remarkably freeing feeling.
While nicotine is a dangerous chemical poison (and useful insecticide) I was always under the impression it was other chemicals in cigarettes that were even more harmful.
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First of all banning is not a solution.
Have you not seen how well that's worked on alcohol and weed and other drugs?
The only question for a regulatory body would be to answer: "Do eCigarettes add unstated (or unknown) poisons into your body?"
A secondary question would be: "Are eCigarettes better than actual cigarettes?"
On the surface the answer is yes:
One is not burning paper and leaves. One is primarily ingesting nicotine.
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Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Yeah, a "chain-smoking" sort of addiction to anything is going to be bad for you, but with vapor you don't have all that tar in your lungs. Be careful of the ingredients in your e-juice so you don't get popcorn lung, and you're way better off compared to conventional cigarettes.
It's better to figure out how to get a natural high, and it's better to wake up in the morning with energy naturally instead of needing coffee, but if you're still smoking tobacco then stop today and switch to e-cigs. Your future self will thank you a million times.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
which is a byproduct of combustion. They produce a vapor fog that LOOKS like smoke, but isn't.
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They will not. They will pile higher and deeper. All you need to notice is that every fucking crazy study about blood vessel growth or potential DNA damage gets pushed to the top of national news, but all the studies demonstrating in vivo safety never make it outta journals. It is an organized push to sell a narrative.
I'm pretty sure you're only half right.
1) Nicotine is problematic, it interferes with the body's ability to fight cancer, but it doesn't look like it causes it
2) There is no "burnt" or whatever we want to call it, "burnt" appears to be a carcinogen in general (for example, diets heavy in blackened and charred food seem to lead to GI cancers)
3) Vaping seems to be better for the cardiovascular system than smoking.
But, I do suspect it is not harmless, and may even be quite bad. For one thing, inhaling solvents, even food safe ones, is likely not the healthiest thing, also, It wouldn't shock me to learn that breathing 400 degree air carries with it it's own health effects.
It still seems to be much healthier than smoking.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
'E-cigarrettes' are just a blatant drug delivery device (for nicotine, a highly addictive and poisonous substance), plain and simple, and that was blindingly obvious the first time I ever heard about them.
Tell that to the people I know who went from smoking 1-2 packs a day of cigarettes, to e-cigs/vaping, and now don't even smoke at all.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Nicotine is the most dangerous part of a traditional cigarette, per mg. However, much like with coffee and caffeine, nicotine is a very small portion of the traditional delivery method. At the volumes in a normal cigarette, the burnt paper smoke is enough of a lung cancer risk even if it was completely emptied of tobacco products and additives.
At different times, cigarettes have had different additives with different levels of inhaled toxicity, but the smoke always consists primarily of burnt plant materials, filling the smokers' lungs with carcinogenic ash and some small amount of very addictive, fairly toxic nicotine.
They never seem to promote the stories that are in direct contradiction to this study. The Royal College of Physicians in the U.K. made a determination the e-cigarettes were at least 95% less harmful than cigarettes. No one cared. But every time this type of study, typically with terrible methodology no one pays attention to, is released, the media goes nuts. Saying something is safe isn't click bait worthy.
First of all banning is not a solution.
That depends on your goals. If you primary goal is to put a lot of poor people and minorities behind bars for using drugs that seldom result in meaningful harm to others then banning is a terrific solution. Not so much for people with a sense of decency and any amount of practicality though.
As long as they aren't worse for you than cigarettes they have the following advantages:
In short. Vaping is better for everyone else.
Most legitimate peer-reviewed journals have a conflict of interest disclosure requirement, so you just have to look at the paper to see.
The paper isn't available to no-subcribers, but here's the guideline listed by the journal in question:
A statement describing any financial conflicts of interest or lack thereof is published with each manuscript. During the submission process, the corresponding author must provide this statement on behalf of all authors of the manuscript. The statement should describe all potential sources of bias, including affiliations, funding sources, and financial or management relationships, that may constitute conflicts of interest (please see the ACS Ethical Guidelines). The statement will be published in the final article. If no conflict of interest is declared, the following statement will be published in the article: “The authors declare no competing financial interest.”
The bigger question is, what is the nature of the paper, and the journal it appears in?
The gold standard for evidence is a literature review paper published in a relevant journal that has a high impact factor for its field. Even high quality research reported in a relevant legitimate journal isn't something anyone should make any judgments based on. Science deals with evidence, and evidence in any non-trivial question tends to pile up on both sides at the outset.
ACS Sensors is a relatively new journal published by the American Chemical Society for research in chemical sensor technology. It's not even a health-related journal. This doesn't mean the research is bad, or the conclusions are bad. It just means that they're mainly relevant as to whether this technology could be used to research the health impact of e-cigarettes.
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Uh, the headline is misleading.
Nicotine in e-cigarettes found just as harmful as nicotine in regular cigarettes.
UConn researchers found that e-cigarettes loaded with a nicotine-based liquid are potentially as harmful as unfiltered cigarettes when it comes to causing DNA damage.
Oh, and it gets even better:
UConn’s scientists decided to look into whether the chemicals in e-cigarettes could cause damage to human DNA while testing a new electro-optical screening device they developed in their lab. The small 3-D printed device is believed to be the first of its kind capable of quickly detecting DNA damage, or genotoxicity, in environmental samples in the field, the researchers say.
First test of our new device to detect DNA damage!
The device is unique in that it converts chemicals into their metabolites during testing, which replicates what happens in the human body, Kadimisetty says.
Sorry, first test of our new device to simulate biological processes and see if they produce chemicals that can cause DNA.
E-cigarettes still don't contain smoke, 676 chemical additives (flame retardants, colorants, preservatives, pesticides, etc.), carbon monoxide, or the like. As well, the chemical additives are generally propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin, which are both generally safe (vegetable glycerin is absorbed as a metabolizable carbohydrate-like food, more of a ketone; propylene glycol is apparently actually less-harmful than that).
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The problem with your statement is that the vaping industry is NOT the tobacco industry.
They arent the same companies.
A lot of people still think smoking is cool, but somehow an e-cig is like sucking on a dildo.
Nobody still thinks smoking is cool. I never thought I'd see the day when smoking marijuana carries less of a social stigma than smoking tobacco.
Disclaimer: I smoke.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Sola dosis facit venenum.
Nicotine isn't necessarily harmful, it just depends on the amount, as with everything else. Certain amounts of it are actually beneficial for certain medicinal applications. Foods we often eat also carry nicotine, such as tomatoes, eggplant, and potatoes (all of which are nightshades, as is tobacco itself.) A whole eggplant carries about half a miligram of nicotine for example.
Vaper here. For about 3 months now.
I make my own vaping fluid. It's composed of "pure" VG (VEGETABLE GLYCERIN) and "PG" (PROPYLENE GLYCOL), with added Nicotine and some flavours. PG, VG and nicotine come from reliable, trusted sources, and have no additives whatsoever. Aroma is more complex, but you can live without it if you do not trust its components, although most are at least accepted as food addictives, so should be safe.
To be honest, the way they put it really looks like they are funded by the Big Guys.
All I can say is for the last two months or so I feel much more healthy, no more morning coughs, I already reduced my nicotine intake for more than 50%. I tend to vape a lot, though, but as long as my sources do not lie about the base components (VG and PG) I should be way safer.
There are no such things as "addictives", unless they mean aroma. And again, those, if coming from a reliable, trusted source, should be safe.
Alvie
In fact, it's the tobacco companies pushing most of these regulations on e-cigarettes.
Nicotine itself is not a useful insecticide, primarily because it's so poisonous to non-target species: Avians & Mammals.
As Nicotine is absorbed through the skin easily, it's also quite easy for somebody using nicotine as an insecticide to poison themselves, as well as anybody else in the area. 30-60 mg can kill a human adult, though the LD50 is generally 500-1000 mg.
The neonicotinoids (similar to Nicotine) are extremely useful insecticides - as deadly to insects, but relatively nontoxic to birds & mammals.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
The alternative to a nanny state is a lot more people injuring and killing themselves, and the rest of us having to pay for it in both monetary and non-monetary ways.
Sorry to sound snarky, but "citation needed". Seriously - I've been around long enough to see the "War On Drugs" play out, and billions of government dollars and millions of drug possessors in prison has done squat for addiction rates. Meanwhile, usage of the completely legal cigarettes has been drastically curtailed by simply restricting advertising, improving education. restrictions on second-hand smoke, and taxing them to the hairy edge of a black market.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Author Contributions
The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
Acknowledgment
The authors thank the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH, Grant No. ES03154 for financial support. We thank Islam M. Mosa for SEM images.
https://www.gov.uk/government/...