With more and more evidence mounting concerning the benefits of vaping, it’s becoming hard to ignore.
With companies such as Cancer Research UK singing praises about the use of vaping as a smoking cessation tool as well as the London Fire Department using it as a great way to halt deadly house fires, vaping is turning more and more into the mainstream nicotine intake choice. With smoking known to have more than 300 known carcinogens and more and more young people turning from the tobacco industry, it’s no surprise that companies such as Phillip Morris International are singing praises and using heat not burn devices and vaping to tap into a new and previously unexplored market. So, what does the research tell us and why exactly is vaping so much safer than smoking?
Cancer research
Cancer Research UK have recently come out as promoters of vaping as part of Stoptober, a month in which there is a national push to help people to quit smoking. The idea is to promote vaping as a way for people to give up their tobacco habit. Part of the reason for this is the fact that there are so many less harmful ingredients in vape devices, which are made of only a few ingredients. These include only water vapour, propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine and flavourings, all of which are now regulated through the new TPD laws. On top of this, vaping has been deemed at least 95% safer than smoking tobacco by studies conducted over the past decade.
Vaping as a smoking cessation tool
In the BMJ journals, a recent study showed the benefits of vaping as a smoking cessation tool. The study projected that over a ten-year period, 6.6 million deaths could be averted if smokers changed to vaping. On top of this, a 0.5 gain in life expectancy was shown in younger smokers who at 15 years old changed from tobacco smoking to vaping. The outcome predicted was that even with pessimistic outcomes, there was still a substantial addition to life expectancy and a culled number of deaths if people changed from tobacco to smoking. The lead researcher, David Levy from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre found that over a ten-year period, those who stopped smoking found a substantial gain in life expectancy. It is no wonder then, that countries such as Russia who have one of the largest numbers of smokers in the world have begun to implicate laws to stop tobacco deaths in its tracks.
Fire risks and tobacco
Fire departments in London have also capitalised on the Stoptober push for quitting smoking by going hand in hand with Cancer Research UK to warn of the amounts of home deaths that have come about through fires started by cigarettes. Vaping uses heated water vapour and electricity rather than a live flame to inhale the e juice. Of course, they warn of electrical fires which in the past have come about due to faulty charging products and people blowing out the circuits in their vape devices. Care, they say, must be taken when handling any electrical device to minimise the risk of an electrical fire. Nevertheless, there is a far bigger chance of causing a fire through tobacco smoke than vape liquids.
Vaping growing in acceptance
On the whole, vaping is becoming far more widely accepted due to its use in the fight against smoking. With nicotine gum and patches being too strong a measure and not being effective in simulating the smoking experience, many have turned to vaping due to part of the addiction being in the habit of inhalation. Vaping relieves this urge and can give you a nicotine hit, helping you to slowly ween your way off the addiction.