Are E-Cigs Actually Safe?
Nicotine and Health: a publication by the American Council on Science and Health: Listed below are some quotes from the publication that pertain to e-cigarettes.
Cancerous effects:
Electronic cigarette vapor appears chemically incapable of causing cancer as cigarette smoke has done. E-cigarette vapor contains toxicants concentrations averaging less than one percent of the concentrations in tobacco cigarette smoke.
Taxation efforts:
Governments looking to recoup future excise losses on declining tobacco sales could be tempted to tax e-cigarettes. This would make electronic cigarettes less price-competitive and would have the unwanted side effect of protecting tobacco sales.
Respiratory effects:
These randomized controlled trials followed participants for six and 12 months, and found no serious adverse events attributable to electronic cigarettes.
Lung function:
Lung function was not signifcantly decreased in 15 smokers using e-cigarettes, or in 15 never-smokers inhaling the vapor of e-cigarettes or inhaling smoke; lung function was, however, significantly decreased seven percent by active tobacco smoking.
Cardiovascular:
Arterial stiffness is not increased from vaping
Red and white blood cells are not increased in the peripheral blood in the first hour after an e-cigarette either actively or passively inhaled.
Nicotine administered by electronic cigarette can relieve chronic idiopathic neutrophilia
Brain effects:
Nicotine in e-cigarettes reduces the urge to smoke and improves mood, working memory, and prospective memory
QUESTION 1. DO E-CIGARETTES LEAD CHILDREN INTO SMOKING?
On the evidence to date, the answer is no. The percentage risk of never smokers using e-cigarettes (whether adolescents or adults) is near zero
- Safety evaluation and risk assessment of electronic cigarettes as tobacco cigarettes substitutes: A systematic review: A total of 114 studies are referenced in this paper, with 97 directly related to e-cigarettes or their ingredients. The review covers all aspects, from chemical to clinical studies, including studies evaluating the potential effects of selected ingredients of e-cigarettes such as propylene glycol and glycerol. It includes discussion about the effects of nicotine and findings from studies evaluating passive exposure to e-cigarette aerosol.This is the first extensive e-cigarette review published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. The main themes of the paper are: discussion about nicotine and its effects-toxicity, presentation of chemical studies, cytotoxicity studies, clinical-case report studies and surveys, passive vaping studies and miscellaneous issues such as e-cigarette use by specific subpopulations (patients with respiratory disease or psychiatric conditions), accidental nicotine exposure, electrical accidents and fires and use by youngsters and non-smokers. Discussion about mistakes in methodology and mis-interpretation of findings is also included.
- Long-term effects of inhaled nicotine: A study where rats were given inhaled nicotine at twice the amount of heavy smokers, which found “increase in mortality, in atherosclerosis or frequency of tumors in these rats compared with controls. Particularly, there was no microscopic or macroscopic lung tumors nor any increase in pulmonary neuroendocrine cells. Throughout the study, however, the body weight of the nicotine exposed rats was reduced as compared with controls. In conclusion, our study does not indicate any harmful effect of nicotine when given in its pure form by inhalation.”