Do You Know These Three Major Myths About E-Cigarettes?

Recently, the CDC issued a recommendation to the public: consumers should avoid using e-cigarette products, as there have been multiple clinical cases indicating a link between lung diseases and e-cigarette use, and related research is still ongoing.
 
Since e-cigarettes were promoted in the global market over a decade ago, their sales have grown exponentially from an initial $20 million to now several billion dollars.

Some users report that using e-cigarettes has reduced their coughing and cravings compared to traditional cigarettes, suggesting that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit and are relatively more beneficial to health compared to cigarettes.

Is this really the case?

Myth 1: E-cigarettes can help most smokers quit smoking.<\/strong>

E-cigarettes, also known as nicotine delivery systems, primarily deliver aerosol to users by heating a solution. Most experts believe that the rapid popularity of e-cigarettes globally is superficially due to the merchants' claims of "non-toxic, can help quit smoking, environmentally friendly," but in reality, it stems from the long-standing human dependence on tobacco and the psychological conflict of pursuing health; in other words, from a scientific perspective, using e-cigarettes is merely a form of self-comfort for smokers.

Objectively, due to the components and mechanisms of e-cigarettes being artificially created, the amount of harmful substances released is relatively lower than that of traditional cigarettes, and the environmental pollution caused by exhaled aerosol is also reduced, but this is relative to traditional cigarettes and their components, which does not mean that e-cigarettes are harmless, nor does it indicate that e-cigarettes can help smokers successfully quit.

A social survey shows that over 90% of smokers using high-nicotine e-cigarettes report that there is not much difference between using e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes, and they still feel dependent on the nicotine in e-cigarettes; while over 90% of those who quit e-cigarettes reported that the reason for returning to traditional cigarettes was that e-cigarettes did not provide enough "satisfaction." Thus, it concludes that those with true nicotine dependence (addiction) need to overcome their dependence on nicotine when quitting smoking.

In contrast, nicotine is inevitably present in e-cigarette vapor; it contains nearly 30 volatile components, with propylene glycol, nicotine, and glycerin being the main components, where propylene glycol and glycerin are the vaporizing agents in e-liquid, accounting for 80%-90% of the liquid, and nicotine is included to meet the physiological and psychological needs of smokers.

The so-called principle of quitting smoking with e-cigarettes lies in replacing traditional cigarettes with e-cigarettes to achieve the goal of quitting. However, what causes addiction to smoking has never been a habit, but the effect of nicotine in tobacco. Therefore, merely relying on habit replacement cannot reduce cravings. On the contrary, it may increase the risk of relapse to traditional cigarettes due to the lower nicotine content in e-cigarettes.

Based on the above facts, a paradox about e-cigarettes emerges: if one can gradually reduce tobacco dependence through the use of lower-nicotine e-cigarettes and successfully quit, then smokers can also reduce their consumption of traditional cigarettes daily, so why use e-cigarettes?

Myth 2: E-cigarettes and their secondhand smoke are harmless to health.<\/strong>

In recent years, when discussing the safety of e-cigarettes, the claims of merchants that "e-cigarettes are harmless to health, and the health damage from e-cigarettes is greatly reduced" sharply contrast with the rational analysis of scientists.

Dr. Shi Zhaowen from the Respiratory and Critical Care Department of Shanghai Putuo District Central Hospital stated: "It is said that the harmful chemical substances in e-cigarettes may be less than those in traditional cigarettes, but there is currently no sufficient evidence to quantify that the harmful chemical components in e-cigarettes are less harmful to the human body than traditional cigarettes; on the contrary, more and more studies indicate that e-cigarettes are not safe."

E-cigarettes are a new phenomenon compared to traditional cigarettes, and scientists are still working to understand their long-term health effects, but some research results are already available. For example, the secondhand smoke from e-cigarettes is actually secondhand aerosol, not the water vapor many manufacturers claim, and it is a new source of air pollution that can produce particulate matter, propylene glycol, certain volatile organic compounds, certain heavy metals, and nicotine. The World Health Organization has reported that secondhand aerosol can cause PM1.0 values to be 14 to 40 times higher, PM2.5 values to be 6 to 86 times higher, nicotine content to be 10 to 115 times higher, and acetaldehyde content to be 2 to 8 times higher, with formaldehyde content increasing by 20% (all these values are compared to safe limits).#p#Pagination Title#e#

A domestic test result showed that the formaldehyde content in the smoke of different e-cigarettes after 100 puffs ranged from 2.3 mg to 14.9 mg. Quantifying this result, this formaldehyde concentration is ten to several tens of times higher than the maximum allowable concentration of formaldehyde in indoor air in our country.

Multiple domestic and international studies have proven that e-cigarettes, compared to traditional cigarettes, significantly increase the suppression of the human immune system, increase cardiovascular risks, trigger heart disease, and the added flavoring components can lead to cell apoptosis. Smoking e-cigarettes can lead to increased respiratory resistance, potentially causing lung damage, and the carbonyl compounds (formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, propionaldehyde, glyoxal) generated when e-liquid contacts the heating device may lead to various cancers.

Myth 3: E-cigarettes do not produce lung radiation.<\/strong>

In 1974, a study by Harvard scientists Little and William O'Toole confirmed that long-term smoking causes radiation effects from polonium-210 on the human lungs, leading to a series of fatal diseases. The experimenters injected a small amount of polonium into the trachea of hamsters, and in the group with the highest injection frequency, 94% of the hamsters developed lung tumors. Since polonium-210 comes from tobacco, smoking has been closely linked to lung radiation. So what is the relationship between e-cigarettes and lung radiation? Do artificial cigarettes eliminate the risk of heavy metal radiation?

Research abroad has shown that under normal usage conditions, the concentrations of certain metals (including lead, chromium, and nickel) and formaldehyde in some e-cigarette aerosols are equal to or higher than those in traditional cigarettes, including certain metal particles, such as nickel, chromium, and lead, which may even be higher than the content of secondhand smoke produced by traditional cigarettes. These components all carry radiation risks. In addition, e-cigarettes also produce some toxic substances not found in traditional cigarette smoke, such as glyoxal, which is flammable, toxic, and irritating, and the vapor or aerosol can irritate the eyes, mucous membranes, and upper respiratory tract.

Dr. Shi Zhaowen explained that traditional tobacco products contain radioactive substances polonium-210 and lead-210, and smoking one and a half packs of cigarettes daily is equivalent to undergoing an X-ray examination every day, or spending 5 hours outside the Fukushima nuclear power plant every March.

"Currently, there has been no further comparative research on the metal substances causing lung radiation between e-cigarettes and traditional tobacco products, but whether it is e-cigarettes or traditional tobacco products, both will increase the risk of lung radiation, and long-term accumulation may lead to cancer; especially the metal particles contained in e-cigarette oils and aerosols, such as chromium, cadmium, and lead, which come from the heating coils in e-cigarettes, have toxic side effects on important organs in the human body, and some elements like lead also have radioactivity," Dr. Shi Zhaowen said.