E-cigarettes have only been around for a decade, and today they are popular everywhere, especially in the UK where there are nearly 3 million vape users.
But the product’s meteoric rise in popularity and potential to help people quit smoking has brought with it a number of challenges. The biggest of these is that research to prove its safety has barely kept pace with its development.
Although there have been many studies showing that e-cigarettes are safer than cigarettes, there is still a misconception that they are just as dangerous as cigarettes, and this can make smokers hesitant to switch to e-cigarettes.
Now, new research from a team of scientists at UCL should put that fear to rest. Depending on your definition of “long-term”, the results are the most conclusive evidence yet that e-cigarettes are safer than smoking.
Electronic cigarettes should be safer than cigarettes
Tobacco is the single biggest cause of preventable death, killing 6 million people each year. That's because tobacco contains 5,000 chemicals, 70 of which can cause cancer.
E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco. Instead, they use a liquid containing nicotine that is heated into a vapor. Nicotine satisfies the cravings that come with smoking but does not cause cancer.
The fact that e-cigarettes do not emit toxic fumes like cigarettes has shown that this device is much safer. But this item has appeared on the market for the first time, there is still not enough research to confirm this. That is why scientists around the world have tried to find out what e-cigarettes contain and what effect this product has on the human body.
Early studies have shown that e-cigarette liquids and the vapour they produce do not contain the same levels of toxins as regular cigarette smoke. In fact, the levels of toxins found are so low that PHE and the Royal College of Physicians have rated e-cigarettes as 95% safer than smoking.
But until now, no one has looked at what the effects are for people who use e-cigarettes every day.
That's why this study, led by professor Lion Shahab, is the first to look at the effects of e-cigarettes on long-term users.
How safe are e-cigarettes?
The study included a group of people who had used e-cigarettes for 17 months, measuring the levels of nicotine and 26 toxic substances in their bodies using urine and saliva samples.
The team compared these results with those of smokers and users of both e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes. They also examined users of nicotine replacement therapy, which is often used to help people quit smoking or as a long-term alternative.
“We tested NRT users because we know those products are safe,” Shahab said. “We thought it would be a good comparison,” he added, because long-term users of these products get their nicotine from non-tobacco sources, just like e-cigarette users.
Interestingly, nicotine levels from e-cigarette users were similar to those from NRT users and smokers, suggesting that users can get the amount of nicotine they want by using any of the three products.
“That's part of the reason why many people like to use e-cigarettes to quit smoking, and we find it to be an effective method of delivering nicotine,” said Shahab.
The biggest result they found was that when they tested the concentrations of toxic substances in the three samples, they found a huge difference in the concentrations of these substances in the three groups of people. One of those substances, NNAL (a lung carcinogen), was 97% lower in the bodies of e-cigarette users than in smokers.
Not only did e-cigarette users have lower levels of toxic chemicals in their bodies than smokers, the team found these levels were similar to those of safe NRT users.
“We have three decades of research into the safety of NRT, and we have not found any long-term health effects,” Shahab says.
So if e-cigarettes have the same effect on the body as safe smoking cessation therapy, we can affirm that this product is also safe.
What does this result mean now?
This study confirms that e-cigarettes are very safe. If you are a smoker, the best thing you can do for your health is to stop. And the most effective way to do this is through Smoking Cessation Support.
And as we mentioned earlier, many people have successfully quit smoking with the help of e-cigarettes and expert advice.
This article was published on Cancer Research UK by Carl Alexander and translated by The Vape Club
