Anyone wondering if they should ditch smoking, head to a vape shop, and take up vaping instead can gain a lot of insight from a new study. It says e-cigarettes are many thousands of times healthier for people than smoking tobacco.
The study, which will be published in the Journal of Aerosol Science in January, examined the lung cancer risk for people who are active vapers and those in their immediate vicinity. It looked at the particles in vapor given off by e-cig devices to determine how they compared to smoke from burning tobacco and found greatly reduced amounts of harmful substances.
Up to now, debate has raged in the US and around the world over the perceived health aspects of using an e-cigarette to traditional tobacco cigarettes. Some have argued that vaping is just as dangerous to a person’s health, while more recently, research by prestigious medical organisations has said exactly the opposite. All this has left many people perplexed.
Vaping Vs Smoking: Clearing the Air
Now this latest study, led by Dr Mauro Scungio of the University of Cassino in Italy, backs up the growing body of research that may offer people a clearer choice if they want to stop smoking and get healthier. Everyone, after all, is aware of the extreme health risks smoking tobacco poses to the human body. Plus, e-cigarettes are widely available from a good online vape shop.
In the United States alone, it’s estimated that close to half a million people die each year from tobacco-related illnesses, such as lung cancer and other diseases. Even people who don’t smoke but are around people who do are at risk. More than 41,000 people lose their lives in the US annually due to diseases developed through secondhand smoke.
On a global scale, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls tobacco smoking an “epidemic” and one that leads to seven million deaths around the world each year. Close to one million of those are non-smokers who were exposed to secondhand smoke. The culprit is the thousands of chemicals in burning tobacco, nearly 100 of which are toxic and can cause cancer and other diseases.
‘Vastly Reduced Risk’
The Italian study concludes that vaping is statistically far safer for people than smoking tobacco — a grand total of 5,700 times less harmful, it says. Additionally, it says that e-cigarettes and the e-liquid they contain are practically harmless in comparison to old-fashioned cigarettes.
In conclusion, the authors of the research said that the particles in e-cigarette vapor were far lower than the limits for human safety as outlined by such organisations as the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the WHO. This led them to believe that in general, “electronic cigarettes are safer than traditional cigarettes.” It is because of studies like these that uncover the actual risks of vaping — or lack thereof — that health bodies are starting to recommend that people switch to e-cigarettes as a way to get off tobacco, switch to visiting vape shops and save their health in the process.
And it comes as increasing numbers of countries around the world are declaring plans to go almost entirely smoke-free in the next few years. Advising that smokers take up vaping, whose e-liquid can contain different levels of nicotine (or none at all) is among the ways they are aiming to meet their goals and make their populations healthier.
There are even calls for pregnant women to be given vaping devices for free to help them stop smoking during their pregnancies. All this may finally lead to the death of tobacco, as people get off their deadly addictions that have killed countless millions throughout the years.