Vaping, a positive combat against passive smoking!

Second hand smoke (SHS) is and has been a hotly debated topic since it was first identified as a potential health hazard decades ago. There are two types of smoke that combine to make second hand smoke, there is side stream smoke which is the smoke that comes from a lit cigarette and mainstream smoke which comes from the lungs of a smoker as they exhale. These are two very different types of smoke and one is more dangerous than the other. Side stream smoke pouring out of a cigarette makes up the bulk of second hand smoke and contains smaller particles than mainstream smoke which lets it enter the body and cells more easily. When a smoker inhales, the smoke mixes with oxygen and burns hotter making smaller less dangerous compounds, this is then released into the air when the smoker exhales but not before it has left a few nasty things inside the lungs. Either of these types of smoke is very dangerous alone, but together they make a killer combination. Second hand smoke exposure also known as passive smoking is something that has no minimum safe exposure, it is very harmful and the more you’re exposed to it the more damage it will do.

The main problem with passive smoking is that the person doing it is doing it without wanting to or necessarily knowing they are, if anything they are being exposed to the ill effects of someone else’s habit. This is not just a generally harmful set of effects, public bodies and organisations ranging from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) branch of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UK Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH), the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to name a few have classified both types of second-hand smoke as a ‘known human carcinogen’ (cancer-causing agent). Out of tobacco’s more than 7,000 chemical compounds found and identified so far, 250 or more are known to be harmful, and at least 69 are known to cause cancer, this last number is on the rise. This should help offer some perspective on why the push for smoke free laws in the workplace and indoor public spaces such as airports, hospitals, hotels and restaurants have been so aggressively enforced in Europe and around most of the developed world.

It’s all very well for a smoker to ruin their health and gamble with their life, but quite another to put others, especially those who don’t share the habit or like it, at risk of deadly diseases and disability.

Over the last 48 years some 30 reports by the US Surgeon General’s office have been issued to raise public awareness of the serious health implications linked to tobacco and SHS. The ongoing research in these reports still supports that tobacco and second hand smoke are linked to serious and long term health problems including:

• Asthma, lung and ear infections becoming more common in children who are around smokers
• Childhood leukaemia
• Heart disease
• Cancers of the larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), brain, lungs, bladder, rectum, stomach, and breast
• Chronic bronchitis
• Pneumonia

Some chemicals found in tobacco also make their way into breast milk, and there are worrying links between second hand smoke and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

To add a number to all this, the United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that exposure to second-hand smoke causes approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths per year in non-smokers in the US, with estimates of second hand smoke related deaths in the UK being around 11000 from lung cancer, strokes and heart disease.

Of course these are just estimates and only take deaths into account; there are likely many, many more living with diseases and disabilities as a consequence of exposure to other people’s smoke.

There are some useful facts in this article from Cancer Research UK:

“…Breathing in other people's smoke can cause cancer. Second-hand smoke can increase a non-smoker's risk of getting lung cancer by a quarter, and may also increase the risk of cancers of the larynx (voice box) and pharynx (upper throat).

Second-hand smoke can cause other health problems too, including heart disease, stroke and breathing problems. Even 30 minutes of exposure to second-hand smoke can reduce blood flow in a non-smoker’s heart. Every year, second-hand smoke kills about 11,000 people in the UK from lung cancer, heart disease and strokes…”

Cancer Research UK

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/smokingandtobacco/passivesmoking/

Electronic Cigarettes or e-cigs have been the centre of much debate over the last few years and even more so just recently, with the FDA, various tobacco companies, medical studies and various health organisations all weighing into the debate. There is a lot of cut and thrust between all these parties but there are also a number of facts which should all be taken into account about them. For a start e-cigs don’t contain tobacco, they don’t use combustion like normal cigarettes, instead they use a battery operated heating element that heats the nicotine infused e-liquid into vapour, this is then inhaled by the e-cig user or vaper and exhaled exactly the same way smoke would be, the crucial difference is that while the feel and effect is much the same, you feel the vapour as you would the smoke and get the nicotine hit, what you exhale is vapour with trace amounts of residual nicotine and flavourings. Studies conducted so far indicate that vast majority of the 4000-7000 chemicals present in all forms of tobacco smoke mainstream or side stream are not present in this vapour, those that are present are found to be in vastly lower quantities than are found even in smoking cessation devices such as nicotine patches and gum. The FDA has made a number of allegations about the carcinogens found in e-cig liquids but has systematically failed to provide the actual amounts of these substances to the point of being methods have been ridiculed in various journals for failing to provide adequate evidence and misrepresentation of nicotine content and health hazards. A report from a study conducted by the Boston University School of Public Health found that 16 laboratory studies reviewed identified the components in electronic cigarette e-liquid and vapour and found that carcinogen levels in electronic cigarettes are up to 1,000 times lower than those in found in tobacco cigarettes.

“…Although the existing research does not warrant a conclusion that electronic cigarettes are safe in absolute terms and further clinical studies are needed to comprehensively assess the safety of electronic cigarettes, a preponderance of the available evidence shows them to be much safer than tobacco cigarettes and comparable in toxicity to conventional nicotine replacement products..."

Boston University School of Public Health

http://phys.org/news/2010-12-evidence-e-cigs-safer-cigarettes.html

If the nicotine levels of an electronic cigarette are this low for the mainstream user and there is no side stream smoke or in this case vapour, then it is quite possible that the exhaled vapour from an e-cig contains even less nicotine and other chemicals that the already 1000 times higher levels and 4000-7000 times more dangerous chemicals found in tobacco.

As we have explained in other articles on this site, the long term effects of e-cig use or vaping has not been conclusively proved to be harmless, even if most early medical study results suggest that they are, so for personal use this must be taken into account, however there is absolutely nothing to suggest at this point that any of the detrimental effects of second hand smoke are likely to be experienced through being exposed to electronic cigarette e-liquid vapour.