E-CIGARETTES
Around
95% Less Harmful Than Regular Smoking
Stes de Necker
From the ripe age of about six years and
starting your school career in grade I, chances are very good that the first
organs in your body you learned about, were the lungs.
Which of us haven’t seen, or were expected
to learn, the following diagram of the human lungs:
After this initial introduction, chances
are that, save for a few incidental references to the physiology of the human
lung, you will hardly ever again hear about the workings of the lungs.
That is until that inevitable first time
that you will be confronted with the evils of smoking!
Oh my goodness, and what a terrible day
that was .......
Pictures of the most rotten lungs you have
ever seen; People lying in hospital with emphysema; Patients hooked up to
oxygen tanks and whatever other frightening pictures you can think off. Enough
to stop any potential smoker dead in his tracks.
But has anyone up to now actually explained
to the fear stricken smoker or potential smoker, what the real dangers are and
what actually happens in the event of smoking? Chances are slim that this has
happened.......
So what are the facts?
Let me first hasten to say that I am no
doctor or specialist on the issue of tobacco smoking. What I wish to share with
you is my personal experience when I was confronted with the possibility of
having some lung defect.
After some time of regularly waking up with
a rather bad cough and a rather large amount of phlegm in my lungs, I decided
that it was time to visit a doctor and thanks heaven for the fact that he
referred me to a medical technician for a Lung Function Test.
In essence this test measures the amount of
air passing through the lungs and the efficiency of the lungs to absorb the
amount of oxygen from the air in the lungs.
The results of the test are presented in a
graph format looking as follows:
Where the blue dotted
line represents the normal condition and the red line the test object’s
results.
In other words, the
more damage there is to the lungs, the less air can move through the lungs and
the less oxygen can be absorbed by the lungs, causing a feeling of tightness in
the chest and having to breathe faster in order to get enough oxygen from the
air in the lungs.
1. Smoking
Traditional
cigarettes are responsible for many illnesses and conditions and the harmful
effects of cigarette smoking is well known. What is possibly not so well known
though is that it's not the raw contents of the cigarette that are dangerous -
it's the burning of the contents.
Smoking a traditional cigarette burns
tobacco, and when tobacco is burnt it releases a dangerous cocktail of around
4,000 chemicals including Carbon Monoxide, Tar and even Arsenic, to name but a
few. At least 80 of these chemicals are capable of causing cancer and hundreds
of others are actually poisonous.
2. Tar
The main culprit for
the damage caused to the lungs, is the tar content in the smoke that is being
inhaled when smoking.
Tobacco contains an ‘oiliness’
which, when the tobacco leaf ‘burns’ is deposited in the form of a dark
coloured tar. So the more ‘oil’ there is in the tobacco, the more tar will be
deposited. That is why in most instances, the tar content of a cigarette is
indicated on the cigarette package as a weight in milligrams. (ie. Tar content
9mg)
Tar being inhaled by
the smoker obviously enters the lungs and because the lungs cannot dispose of
the deposited tar, the tar then starts to remain in the ‘alveoli’ of the lungs
and begins to accumulate thus blocking the alveoli ‘wall’ so that oxygen can no
longer be absorbed from the air by the alveoli.
The more tar that
consequently builds up within the alveoli, the less the alveoli are able to
function and oxygen must now be absorbed by the next ‘tier’ of lung ways, which
are the ‘bronchi’ and the process continues itself now in the bronchial tubes.
3. Nicotine
Nicotine in the
tobacco smoke can, unlike the tar, be absorbed by the lungs.
Nicotine itself is of course a highly
addictive drug and many smokers actually want to stop smoking but are unable to
break this addiction.
However, nicotine
plays no role in the damage caused to the lungs by the smoke!
Nicotine is absorbed
in the blood and this is the drug that causes the brain to send out the
‘signal’ that it now wants more; in other words causing the ‘craving’ to smoke.
4. So how can
the damage to the lungs be stopped?
The only way to stop
any further damage to the lungs would be to remove the tar and other poisonous
contents from the smoke before it enters the lungs.
And short of stop
smoking all together, there is only one way to do this and that is by means of
the so-called Electronic Cigarette.
5. The
Electronic Cigarette
The concept of the electronic cigarettes
has been around since the early 1960's but it's only in recent years that
manufacturing has been able to produce reliable working models. In 2003 the
Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik developed the basis for the modern version that's
widely in use today. He did this after the death of his father from lung
cancer. The huge demand and popularity of electronic cigarettes has driven vast
improvements in the last few years with many different models now
available.
In a nut shell an electronic cigarette, or
e-cigarette, is a device that simulates the act of smoking traditional
cigarettes by producing a vapour instead of smoke. For this reason,
"smoking" an e-cigarette is often referred to as "vaping".
Vaping offers a genuine alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes by
providing the same sensation and nicotine content (if required) but eliminates
many of the harmful side effects of smoking.
The vapour that's produced by an
e-cigarette has the appearance of cigarette smoke and can also share the same
flavour and nicotine content of a traditional cigarette. The difference really
is in the detail though; the vapour that's produced by an e-cigarette does not
smell like smoke and more importantly, does not contain the 4000 or so toxic
chemicals that are produced by a smoking a traditional cigarette, including
Carbon Monoxide, Tar and even Arsenic
Image
of a typical Electronic Cigarette.
Are
Electronic Cigarettes Safe?
A new report published in the U.K. has concluded that
e-cigarettes are nowhere near as harmful as smoking.
Carried out by Public Health England (PHE), the report found that
e-cigarettes are “around 95% less harmful” than smoking tobacco, and that the
National Health Service should consider recommending them to help people quit
smoking all together.
They
have also concluded that there is “no evidence” that they offer young people a
gateway into smoking.
The
review suggests that e-cigarettes may be contributing to falling smoking rates in the U.K., as 2.6 million adults
are now thought to be using the product.
They also found that almost all of
these adults are ex-smokers, providing evidence that many people are not
starting to use the devices after having never smoked in the first place, and
instead are using them to either quit or cut down on tobacco.
“E-cigarettes
are not completely risk free but when compared to smoking, evidence shows they
carry just a fraction of the harm,” explained Professor Kevin Fenton, Director of Health and
Wellbeing at PHE. “The problem is people increasingly think they are at least
as harmful and this may be keeping millions of smokers from quitting. Local
stop smoking services should look to support e-cigarette users in their journey
to quitting completely.”
The
report also goes some way to dismiss the fears that e-cigarettes act as a route
into smoking for young people and non-smokers. This reasoning is partly behind
the Welsh government's recent move to
ban e-cigarettes from all places in which smoking tobacco is also
banned, arguing that they normalize the habit, and could encourage young
people to take it up.
“Fears
that e-cigarettes have made smoking seem normal again or even led to people
taking up tobacco smoking are not so far being realised based on the evidence
assessed by this important independent review,” said Professor Linda Bauld from Cancer Research UK. “In
fact, the overall evidence points to e-cigarettes actually helping people to
give up smoking tobacco.”
It’s estimated that
currently 80,000 people in England die each year as a result of smoking, but if
everybody who does smoke were to switch to e-cigarettes, then this figure is
predicted to drop to just 4,000.
The
evidence, according to the report, is clear: Smoking e-cigarettes is
much less harmful than smoking tobacco cigarettes. And if used in
conjunction with stop smoking support services, they offer a much better
chance at quitting altogether.
E-cigarettes do not burn anything, so they quite simply sidestep this serious health issue.
Another major benefit of smoking electronic
cigarettes is the considerable financial savings that can be made. It can be up
to 80% cheaper to use e-cigarettes versus traditional cigarette smoking.
A
word of caution
While every effort to help people stop
smoking all together should remain a priority, many people either do not wish
to stop smoking or (like me) find it very hard to do so. For this group, I believe
that there is no better product that can deliver nicotine in such a safe way,
without the harmful components like tar and the rest, found in tobacco.
Most of the diseases associated with
smoking are caused by inhaling smoke which contains thousands of these toxic
chemicals.
By contrast, nicotine is relatively safe. I've
yet to hear of someone ‘overdosed’ on nicotine!
Or destroyed his own life or the lives of other's like in the case of alcohol abuse.
Or destroyed his own life or the lives of other's like in the case of alcohol abuse.
Therefore, e-cigarettes, which deliver
nicotine without the harmful toxins found in tobacco smoke, are likely to be a
safer alternative to smoking.
In addition, e-cigarettes reduce second
hand smoke exposure since it does not produce actual smoke.
The wonderful thing about e-cigarettes is
that you have complete control over the amount of nicotine that you use.
You can choose to reduce your nicotine
intake by using ever weaker ‘e-liquid’. It's even possible to use e-liquid that
has zero nicotine content, should you still struggle to break the physical
habit completely.
It's important however to understand that
electronic smoking can still be addictive if nicotine is used though.
Before changing to electronic cigarettes I
would still recommend however that you contact your GP/Doctor for advice.
6. Note
I want to reiterate, I am no doctor or any kind of expert on these matters, but I am merely sharing with you my personal experience over the last few months.
I've been smoking for 49 years and during this period I only stopped on two occasions. Once for a week and once for three weeks.
I've switched to smoking an electronic cigarette and for the last eight months, I haven't touched a cigarette!
So if I can do it, so can everybody else.
And the irony is, I'm still smoking..........
6. Note
I want to reiterate, I am no doctor or any kind of expert on these matters, but I am merely sharing with you my personal experience over the last few months.
I've been smoking for 49 years and during this period I only stopped on two occasions. Once for a week and once for three weeks.
I've switched to smoking an electronic cigarette and for the last eight months, I haven't touched a cigarette!
So if I can do it, so can everybody else.
And the irony is, I'm still smoking..........
