Dangers Of Vaping, E-Cigarettes and JUUL

The e-cigarette aerosol, Vaping, JUUL,  inhaled and exhaled by users, may contain harmful and potentially dangerous elements, including nicotine, ultrafine particles that reach deep into the lungs, and flavorings like diacetyl, associated with a severe lung condition. Welcome to our eye-opening exploration of the ‘Dangers of E-cigarettes.

what are E-cigarettes or electronic cigarettes?

They have been all over the news. They were initially presented as some great saviors that would help millions of adults to quit smoking. But as of late, vaping and E-cigarettes have been getting some pretty bad press.

Some of the e-cigarette companies have been accused of using e-cigarettes to lure youth and teens into a lifelong nicotine addiction. Some people accuse East cigarettes of being a gateway to using illicit drugs.

Do you want to know the truth about vaping? Keep reading.

I recently received a frantic phone call from a family member. She was upset because her grandson, who had been driving her car, apparently left an e-cigarette in the front seat. So, she called me, and she was like, ‘What does this mean? Is he on drugs? Can you smoke marijuana with these cigarettes? Is the e-cigarette gonna blow up in his face?’

This line of dramatic questioning made me realize that there is a lot of confusion out there about e-cigarettes. So, in today’s blog post, I’m going to discuss vaping, its origin, its benefits, its health risks, and the dangers of vaping. What you need to know.

What is vaping?

Vaping is the act of inhaling vapor produced from an e-cigarette. An e-cigarette or an electronic cigarette is an electronic device that heats an electronic liquid and aerosolizes it or vaporizes it.

The electronic device consists of a battery and a cartridge that holds that electronic liquid, usually consisting of nicotine. It also has an atomizer or vaporizer which produces the vapor. The e-cigarette was initially developed in China by a Chinese pharmacist who developed it to help him quit smoking. So, the original intentions were really good.

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The original East cigarettes were very similar to what real cigarettes look like. They called them ‘cigalikes.’ They were disposable initially, and then there have been many generations of e-cigarettes since.

And now, the most popular cigarettes are the pod mods made very popular by the company Joule. These electronic devices are very small, and they look like a USB flash drive, making them very inconspicuous and easy for teenagers to hide from teachers.

So, what is good about vaping?

– though we have very limited short-term data? The consensus among most experts is that vaping in adults is less harmful than smoking tobacco. According to the limited data that we have, when you smoke cigarettes, you burn the tobacco and the carcinogens and other chemicals, and you are inhaling smoke.

That smoke enters the lungs and the respiratory system. You get tar, which can cause all kinds of issues. The tar and other carcinogens can cause lung cancer and are also associated with kidney cancer, skin cancer, and throat cancer.

we know these things to be true from smoking tobacco. When you inhale nicotine vapor, while the nicotine is addictive, we don’t have any data to show that the vaporized nicotine, in and of itself, kills. So, we believe that vaping nicotine is less harmful than inhaling cigarette smoke. That being said, e-liquids have been found to have other materials and other chemicals that are also being vaporized, which can be potentially very harmful.

– Another good thing about vaping?

Vaping is effective in helping adult cigarette smokers to quit smoking. In fact, in a randomized trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it was shown that using e-cigarettes was more effective than nicotine replacement therapy in helping with smoking cessation.

That being said, many people who are cigarette smokers and then turn to e-cigarettes to stop smoking become dual users, meaning they’re smoking cigarettes and vaping or using e-cigarettes at the same time.

– What else is good about vaping?

E-cigarettes come in flavors like mint, chocolate, bubble gum, and blueberry, and the consensus is that these flavors make the e-cigarettes taste better than traditional cigarettes and smell better than traditional cigarettes.

But is that a good thing? Not really, because the fact that these cigarettes smell better and taste better can make people who normally would be repulsed by smoke walk away from cigarette smoke. If they’re inhaling the vapor that doesn’t smell offensive, they might stay there and get exposed to nicotine or other chemicals in the vape.

Dangers of vaping

 

1. Vaping is attractive to teenagers.

Even though vaping was initially presented to stop adult cigarette smokers from smoking, to get them to switch to tobacco, with all the fun fruit flavors of e-cigarettes and the marketing that has young, cool, hip people using the e-cigarettes, it’s become very attractive to teenagers. So much so that now over 3 million youth vape.

And with the e-cigarettes now looking like tiny little USB flash drives, that makes them even more attractive because they’re inconspicuous. You can hide them from parents and teachers. And with the pleasant smells, they’re not offensive. So as a teenager, you’re less likely to get caught.

2. E-liquids have different concentrations of nicotine.

Some of them have 36 milligrams per milliliter of nicotine and some have even more. Now, in a typical traditional cigarette, the average user will only receive one milligram of inhaled nicotine. So you can imagine if in this tiny cartridge, you’re getting over 36 milligrams per milliliter of nicotine, you can have even more exposure than you would have had smoking traditional cigarettes.

So what’s the big deal about nicotine? 

– Increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, and particularly in children, it can affect cognition. Nicotine can affect brain development in children, causing decreased cognition in children.

– Nicotine can cause a decrease in impulse control, a decrease in concentration, and when you get these nicotine crashes, you can also have increased depression and increased anxiety if you are a teenager who’s addicted to nicotine.

– Decrease in impulse control, a decrease in concentration, and when you get these nicotine crashes, you can also have increased depression and increased anxiety if you are a teenager who’s addicted to nicotine.

3. The E-liquid or the E-juice is not strictly FDA-regulated.

What does that mean? You don’t necessarily know what is in the e-juice that you’re inhaling. So traditional e-liquid contains the liquid nicotine, propylene glycol, and some flavoring. Still, some studies have revealed that different liquids can contain some actually harmful or potentially carcinogenic (cancer-causing) chemicals.

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For example, some e-liquids have formaldehyde, some have diacetyl, which has been shown to cause chronic lung disease or popcorn lung. Some e-liquids also have benzene, which has been linked to leukemia.

They’ve also found that certain juices contain metals. So because the e-liquids or e-juices are not strictly regulated, if you’re using an e-cigarette, if you’re vaping, you don’t always know what you’re inhaling. So you really don’t quite know exactly what’s going into your lungs and body.

4. The long-term effects of vaping or e-cigarettes are not known.

We just don’t know what’s going to happen in the long term. According to the American Cancer Society, the short-term effects of vaping are less than cigarettes, but we do not know the long-term effects.

What does that mean? Even now as I share with you the limited data that we have on vaping, we just don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. So there’s an uncertainty, and we’ve seen this in big tobacco back when cigarettes first came out, or at least the marketing became popular, people thought that they might be healthy.

And when the different scientists were saying, ‘Hey, cigarettes are causing cancer, cigarettes are killing,’ the big companies fought that notion for a long time. And now years and decades out, we have all this data on cigarette smoke, and we can say, ‘Oh yeah, the long-term effects are bad.’ Well, we’re still in the beginning with vaping. So you won’t find anyone who’s staying and tells you that vaping is healthy. What we can tell you is that according to the short-term data, vaping appears to be less harmful than cigarette smoking. But again, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the long term.

5. E-cigarettes can blow up in your face.

Now, these e-cigarette accidents are rare, but they do occur, and there have been some fatalities, and some deaths, where in using these battery-operated electronic devices to vape, the e-cigarette has blown up. In one report, it blew up in a man’s face who lost seven teeth, and in another report, a man lost a portion of his lung.

The hole was blown in his lung. In another incident, the man received severe burns. Also, some children have gotten a hold of e-liquid, ingested it, and have also had fatalities. So even though these incidents are somewhat rare, they’re real.

There are some other issues with vaping as well. For example, people with asthma, specifically teens with asthma, for whatever reason, oftentimes are attracted to vaping, and vaping has been shown to exacerbate or make symptoms worse in asthma.

This ends my overview of the truth about vaping. What is the truth? The truth is that vaping can be an effective tool in getting adult smokers to quit smoking. That, in and of itself, is wonderful. But the truth also is that we don’t have any long-term data. So while we may feel that vaping is less harmful than cigarette smoke