Is Vaping Bad for You Too? Vaping vs Smoking. Every discussion of the health risks of vaping should begin with a comparison to cigarette smoking. Vapes are designed to be reduced-harm alternatives to cigarettes, and it’s important to weigh vaping versus smoking because the vast majority of vapers are smokers or ex-smokers.
A paper by 15 former presidents of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco concluded that long-term smokers are being misled about the relative risks of vaping and smoking.
Is Vaping Bad for You Too? Vaping vs Smoking
“We believe the potential lifesaving benefits of e-cigarettes for adult smokers deserve attention equal to the risks to youths,” the scientists wrote. “Millions of middle-aged and older smokers are at high risk of near-future disease and death. Quitting reduces risk.”
“While evidence suggests that vaping is currently increasing smoking cessation,” they added, “the impact could be much larger if the public health community paid serious attention to vaping’s potential to help adult smokers, smokers received accurate information about the relative risks of vaping and smoking, and policies were designed with the potential effects on smokers in mind. That is not happening.”
Can vaping cause cancer?
Cancers form when toxins damage the DNA of cells and cause them to grow and multiply out of control. A tumor can remain local, or the cancer can spread, and even move from one organ to another (metastasize). Most people are familiar with cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer. Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other kind of cancer, and most (but not all) lung cancer victims are smokers or former smokers.
Smoking can cause many other kinds of cancer too, because cancers can form not just from direct contact with smoke particles, but also from smoke byproducts in the bloodstream and organs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in the body.
Carcinogens have been found in vapes, but at levels that suggest the cancer risk is very low. According to a 2017 study in the journal Tobacco Control, the cancer risk of vaping is on a par with the risk posed by pharmaceutical products like nicotine gum or patches—less than one percent the cancer risk of smoking. According to the study, the only byproducts of vaping that posed a real risk were carbonyls produced by overheating the vape device (as explained in the formaldehyde section of this article below).
Other researchers have come to similar conclusions. A 2016 study published in the journal Mutation Research tested both e-cig vapor and cigarette smoke for their ability to cause cell mutations in bacteria. The smoke caused mutations (mutagenic), and was also toxic to the bacteria, while the vapor was not mutagenic or toxic.
Smoking kills, but what about vaping?
Cigarettes wreak havoc on the body, damaging the user practically from head to toe. The harms have been proven beyond doubt. But there is scant evidence pointing to similar health effects from vaping—or any health problems, for that matter, unless you count nicotine dependence. But nicotine isn’t directly responsible for any of the terrible harms of smoking.
Public Health England has been unequivocal in its findings: the respected British agency says vaping is at least 95 percent safer than smoking. PHE researchers understand that studying the dangers of vaping alone is only half of the subject, since vaping exists primarily as an alternative to smoking. The potential risks of vaping are low, and they must be compared to the proven risks of smoking.
Is Vaping Bad for You Too? Vaping vs Smoking
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