Smoking causes about 90% (or 9 out of 10) of all lung cancer deaths. More women die from lung cancer each year than from breast cancer. Smoking causes about 80% (or 8 out of 10) of all deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Cigarette smoking increases risk for death from all causes in men and women.
Tobacco smoke contains over 5,000 chemicals, including nicotine. Nicotine, when smoked, is highly addictive. People who smoke are addicted to the nicotine, but are harmed by the tar and other chemicals in tobacco.
Many of the chemicals can cause cancer. Others are poisonous, such as hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide and ammonia. When you smoke, these chemicals can not only damage your lungs, but also pass into your blood and spread through your body. Smoking can affect every part of the body – from your skin to your brain.
Why can it be so hard to quit smoking?
Most smokers want to stop because they know about the risks to their health. But many keep smoking because they’re addicted to nicotine, often from a young age. The tobacco industry has designed and modified cigarettes to make them as addictive as possible, as well as marketing targeted at young people.
The nicotine in tobacco gets rapidly into your brain and creates a need to continue to smoke. The falling level of nicotine in your brain creates the urge to smoke. Controlling these urges is the key to being able to kick the habit.
There’s no safe way to smoke tobacco.
What makes vaping safer than smoking?
While the long term effects are still to be established, e-cigarettes / vaping are considered a 95% safer nicotine delivery device. This is confirmed by Public Health England, The Royal College of Physicians, The British Lung Foundation, The British Heart Foundation and NHS Smoke-Free.
To simplify things, if you do not smoke, do not start vaping and if you are still smoking tobacco, e-cigarettes and vaping can be used as a stepping stone to quit the deadly habit. The sooner you make the switch, the sooner you will start to see the benefits.
Nicotine does not cause any smoking related illnesses or deaths but is the addictive component in tobacco which keeps you smoking cigarettes/cigars etc.
A new report from the Royal Society for Public Health has found one myth about the dangers of smoking has endured for decades. The research suggests nine out of 10 people falsely believe nicotine is very harmful to their heath, when in fact it is no more dangerous than the caffeine in a cup of coffee.
https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/nicotine–no-more-harmful-to-health-than-caffeine-.html
There are four ingredients in e-liquid, two diluents: propylene glycol (PG) and vegetable glycerine (VG), nicotine and flavouring.
There are approximately 600 ingredients in cigarettes. When burned, cigarettes create more than 7,000 chemicals. At least 69 of these chemicals are known to cause cancer, and many are toxic. Many of these chemicals also are found in consumer products, but these products have warning labels—such as rat poison packaging.
Overall, lifelong smokers die about 10 years earlier than comparable non-smokers, and at least one fourth of the excess mortality is caused by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer.
About 85 to 90 percent of all COPD cases are caused by cigarette smoking.
COPD Risk Factors
Smoking is the biggest risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. It increases your risk of both developing and dying from COPD. Approximately 85 to 90 percent of COPD cases are caused by smoking. Female smokers are nearly 13 times as likely to die from COPD as women who have never smoked; male smokers are nearly 12 times as likely to die from COPD as men who have never smoked.
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/copd/what-causes-copd
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is currently one of the most widespread chronic lung diseases and a growing cause of suffering and mortality worldwide. It is predicted to become the third leading cause of death in the near future. Smoking is the most important risk factor, and about 50% of smokers develop COPD. Smoking cessation is the most important way to improve prognosis
How can vaping help me quit smoking?
Vaping can deliver the nicotine your brain craves without any of the deadly toxins caused by burning tobacco.
What makes vaping more successful than other Nicotine Replacement Therapies?
Other NRT’s include lozenges, medication, inhalers, patches and gum. None of these options recreate the habit of smoking. That first cigarette you have in the morning with your coffee (Nicotine is no more harmful than caffeine) or smoking after a meal or whatever your smoking routine is. Using e-cigarettes to quit smoking allows you to continue with the habit you’re addicted to giving you the same “Hand to mouth” action and the production of smoke without the 7000+ chemicals found in a tobacco. There is a few chemicals that tobacco and vaping produce but in far lower levels and none of which cause smoking related illnesses.
Of course the ultimate goal is to quit altogether but making the switch to vaping is the start of your journey to become smoke-free. There is no time limit and less urgency to quit vaping, you can go at your own speed reducing the nicotine content as you go.
Remember nicotine is not your enemy; it is what keeps you addicted to tobacco.
COPD Patients Who Switch From Smoking to Vaping See Long-Term Benefits
Researchers at the Centre of Excellence for the Acceleration of Harm Reduction (CoEHAR*) in Catania, Italy have just published a ground-breaking study. It shows that smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who switched to vaping reduced their yearly flare-ups by about 50 percent, significantly improved their cardio-respiratory health, and increased both their ability to exercise and their quality of life.
Another important finding is that only four vapers, or 16.7 percent of those in the larger, baseline study cohort, returned to cigarette smoking over the duration of the study (data for these four individuals were excluded from the vaping-only group findings). This indicates that vaping nicotine is a powerful prevention tool, contributing to long-term abstinence from smoking.
Don’t be fooled by disinformation about vaping
There is plenty of disinformation out there regarding vaping; I recently see a poll where 37% of people believe vaping is more harmful than smoking cigarettes.
Debunking some myths around vaping
Popcorn Lung
What is popcorn lung?
Popcorn lung (bronchiolitis obliterans) is an uncommon type of lung disease, but it is not cancer. It’s caused by a build-up of scar tissue in the lungs, which blocks the flow of air.
A possible link has been suggested between the disease and a chemical called diacetyl. More research is needed to find out if they’re connected.
What causes popcorn lung?
A group of popcorn factory workers developed the condition, leading to the name ‘popcorn lung’. They had breathed in diacetyl, as it was used as flavouring in the popcorn. It was not related to use of e-cigarettes.
Although bronchiolitis obliterans is sometimes called ‘popcorn lung’, it can be caused by a number of different things. For example, it can happen after an infection, if it damages the lungs. Or after breathing in chemicals that irritate the lungs and cause damage.
What does the evidence really say about diacetyl and e-cigarettes?
Some of the liquids in e-cigarettes used to contain diacetyl. This led to the idea that e-cigarettes might cause popcorn lung. In the UK, diacetyl was banned in e-cigarette liquids under the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) in 2016. So, e-liquids sold in the UK shouldn’t contain diacetyl.
And there have been no confirmed cases of popcorn lung linked to e-cigarettes.
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/does-vaping-cause-popcorn-lung
Vaping devices use nicotine, so they’re just as harmful as smoking
We’ve known about the incredible harm cigarettes cause for decades. By association, many people assume that nicotine must be the root cause. Although nicotine is highly addictive, evidence shows that it poses minimal risk of harm to health.
In reality, the thousands of chemicals in cigarette smoke cause almost all of the harm of combustible tobacco. No combustion takes place in a vaping device and as a result, the vapour does not contain things like tar and carbon monoxide.
Vaping doesn’t help people quit smoking
Vaping is still a relatively new concept, so naturally, people are sceptical about whether it can help them cut down or entirely quit smoking. One common misconception is that vaping does not help people quit smoking, and may lead to increased smoking.
There is a growing body of evidence that not only suggests vaping can help smokers quit but that it might be one of the most effective alternatives.
A major UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) trial from 2019 found that vaping was twice as effective at helping participants quit smoking, compared with a combination of traditional nicotine replacement therapies.
Vaping products aren’t regulated
When vaping was first commercialised, there were few regulations in place, but this has completely changed.
Vaping products are now being regulated and monitored in all major markets. In the EU, vaping products must adhere to the TPD framework and local governments are able to enforce additional standards. In the UK, this is implemented as the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations (TRPR), under which, manufacturers must notify their products to the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Vaping is a gateway to smoking
According to PHE’s evidence review of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products 2018: “Despite some experimentation with these devices among never smokers, e-cigarettes are attracting very few young people who have never smoked into regular use” and “E-cigarettes do not appear to be undermining the long-term decline in cigarette smoking in the UK among young people.” The report also stated that “The most common reason for e-cigarette use continues to be in order to stop smoking, and smokers who use e-cigarettes on average have higher motivation to stop smoking than other smokers.”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/962221/Vaping_in_England_evidence_update_February_2021.pdf
To summarise;
Nicotine does not cause cancer or any other smoking related disease. There has not been a single case of “Popcorn lung” recorded in the UK from vaping. The UK has some of the strictest regulations around vaping but is recognised as one of the most successful ways to quit smoking.
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Another brilliant read !!! Full of information regarding the pro’s of giving up smoking tobacco related products versus vaping.