More evidence e-cigs may help in quitting tobacco
In the short-term, e-cigs appear not to carry any health risks of their own, he said. But researchers still don’t know the long-term health effects of inhaling the common solvent glycol and food flavoring over many years.
The biggest factor in being able to trust your products is by choosing your company wisely, and paying attention to how much information they give you. Integrity goes very far in today’s day and age. Here is a look at some of the most common myths regarding electronic cigarettes that have spread around, along with factual information clarifying these misleading claims.
Myth #1: E-cigarettes will soon be illegal.
Fact: Perhaps in some places, but not in the U.S. Some places have tried to ban them, but as e-cigarettes become more mainstream and accepted, this is unlikely to happen.
Myth #2: E-cigarettes are bad for you because nicotine is bad for you. Therefore, they are not much different than tobacco smoke.
Fact: This is just plain wrong. While nicotine is very addictive, studies have shown its effects on the body to be minimal. The problem with traditional cigarettes is the additives, smoke and chemicals, not so much the nicotine.
Myth #3: E-cigarettes are dangerous because no one really knows what’s in them.
Fact: Not the case when you are dealing with a reputable company. Any legit e-cigarette brand will disclose ingredients, so you truly do know what’s in them. And if you do your research on every ingredient, you’ll definitely know what you’re inhaling.
E-cigarettes don’t need to be 100 percent safe, he said, they only need to be significantly safer than tobacco cigarettes because they are primarily used by cigarette smokers. Of the three studies that have investigated e-cig users, none of the daily vapers were non-smokers.
Even though the evidence is still thin, Etter believes smokers should use e-cigarettes as quit-smoking aids, and doctors should recommend them. But the products should not be treated as medical devices or drugs, even though they may have therapeutic benefit for patients, he said.
“Internet surveys are more likely to attract people who had a positive experience with e-cigarettes,” professor Peter Hajek said. “The study is nevertheless innovative in that it did not just ask for a one-off information as a number of previous studies did, but it followed the e-cigarette users up to see what happens to their e-cig use and to their smoking one year later,” he said.
Do e-cigarettes help tobacco smokers quit?
Because they preserve the hand-to-mouth ritual of smoking, Kiklas said e-cigarettes might help transform a smoker’s harmful tobacco habits to a potentially less harmful e-smoking habit. As of yet, though, little evidence exists to support this theory.
In a first of its kind study published last week in the medical journal Lancet, researchers compared e-cigarettes to nicotine patches and other smoking cessation methods and found them statistically comparable in helping smokers quit over a six-month period. For this reason, Glynn said he viewed the devices as promising though probably no magic bullet. For now, FDA regulations forbid e-cigarette marketers from touting their devices as a way to kick the habit.
Experts like Erika Seward, the assistant vice president of national advocacy for the American Lung Association, said many of her worries center on e-cigarettes being a gateway to smoking, given that many popular brands come in flavors and colors that seem designed to appeal to a younger generation of smokers.
“We’re concerned about the potential for kids to start a lifetime of nicotine use by starting with e-cigarettes,” she said.
Though the National Association of Attorneys General today called on the FDA to immediately regulate the sale and advertising of electronic cigarettes, there were no federal age restrictions to prevent kids from obtaining e-cigarettes. Most e-cigarette companies voluntarily do not sell to minors yet vaping among young people is on the rise.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found nearly 1.8 million young people had tried e-cigarettes and the number of U.S. middle and high school students e-smokers doubled between 2011 and 2012.
Hajek is director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, UK. He was not involved in this study.
The new study adds to the evidence that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit or cut down, he said.
“There are two products competing for smokers’ business,” Hajek said. “One kills half the users, the other one is at least an order of magnitude safer,” he said. “It makes little sense to try to cripple the safer one so the deadly one maintains the market monopoly.”
SOURCE: Addictive Behaviors, online October 30, 2013
###
A longitudinal study of electronic cigarette users
Results
Most participants (72%) were former smokers, and 76% were using e-cigarettes daily. At baseline, current users had been using e-cigarettes for 3 months, took 150 puffs/day on their e-cigarette and used refill liquids containing 16 mg/ml of nicotine, on average. Almost all the daily vapers at baseline were still vaping daily after one month (98%) and one year (89%). Of those who had been vaping daily for less than one month at baseline, 93% were still vaping daily after one month, and 81% after one year. In daily vapers, the number of puffs/day on e-cigarettes remained unchanged between baseline and one year. Among former smokers who were vaping daily at baseline, 6% had relapsed to smoking after one month and also 6% after one year. Among dual users (smokers who were vaping daily at baseline), 22% had stopped smoking after one month and 46% after one year. In dual users who were still smoking at follow-up, cigarette consumption decreased by 5.3 cig/day after one month (from 11.3 to 6.0 cig./day, p = 0.006), but remained unchanged between baseline and 1-year follow-up.
Conclusions
E-cigarettes may contribute to relapse prevention in former smokers and smoking cessation in current smokers.
Jean-François Etter,
Chris Bullen
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland
National Institute for Health Innovation, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, New Zealand