Is smoking Vape bad for your health?

Post Reply New Topic

Momma knows best, and being a nurse she knows what she's talking about.

It is not just water in vape. Pinpointing exactly what is and levels is a little difficult because there isn't that much research done, as its unregulated and the chemicals have variation with brands.

The FDA has tested some though. Some were found to have carcinogenic chemicals but not all. However, all the ones tested had nicotine, including the ones labeled "Nicotine Free".

Some of the harmful/potentially harmful chemicals included: Diacetyl, Glycerin, Propylene glycol (PG), Acrolein, Formaldehyde, and Acetaldehyde. There's an unknown about the result of happens when certain chemicals are heated and inhaled even if they are deemed safe for other things (like consuming). There's also some question about what these various chemicals mixing could create and effect.

Toxic metals such as tin, nickel, cadmium, lead, and mercury have been found in e-cigarette aerosol too

E-cigarette batteries have overheated, caught fire, or exploded before too. I don't If they have hammered that out yet, if not that could be pretty harmful to your health alone lol

Vape is still typically seen as less harmful than cigarettes but it's still not good for you.

Vaping can suppose different devices .. E-cigs still contain nicotine, just the smaller dose. Meanwhile dry herb vaporizers and [url=https://[/url] are nicotine free and safe. Vaping can really help to replace smoking addiction, just choose an adequate device.

I haven't really made my mind up on this subject. Vapping may be good if it allows a smoker to quit smoking. But it can be very bad if non-smokers learn to become addicted to this device or if the vapping liquid is modified to encompass other harmful formulas. I read an article this morning that discusses this issue.

On Monday, the FDA issued a warning letter to Juul. The agency is concerned that Juul marketed its product as being safer than cigarettes:

"Referring to your ENDS products as '99% safer' than cigarettes, 'much safer' than cigarettes, 'totally safe,' and 'a safer alternative than smoking cigarettes' is particularly concerning because these statements were made directly to children in school."

The FDA is conflating two different issues in that statement: (1) The safety of vaping devices; and (2) Marketing to children. The latter is unequivocally wrong, and the FDA is correct for bringing down the hammer on Juul. However, the FDA's hesitation to accept the scientific data on vaping is befuddling.

Vaping helps smokers quit. This isn't just anecdotal. A research paper by authors from the University of East Anglia published in the Harm Reduction Journal concluded "that vaping is a viable long-term substitute for smoking, with substantial implications for tobacco harm reduction." Furthermore, in an accompanying press release, one of the authors noted, "[V]aping may also encourage people who don't even want to stop smoking, to eventually quit." Another paper reached a similar conclusion.

In the United Kingdom, two hospitals have opened vaping shops to nudge smokers into quitting. Yes, really. Why? Because their healthcare system believes that vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking. Surely, American e-cigarettes aren't different from British ones.

So, Why Is Vaping Sickening or Killing People?

There have been several stories in the media recently about vapers who either became sick or died. What's going on? A lot of different things that are all being (improperly) lumped together.

In one instance, a vaper suffered a collapsed lung. But as Dr. Chuck Dinerstein explained, that has nothing to do with vaping. Several hundred others have developed severe respiratory problems, and five have died. The vast majority appear linked to vaping THC-infused oil or some other product purchased off the street.

THC is not soluble in water, so it has to be dissolved in oil. The oil of choice is vitamin E acetate. That sounds nice -- we add vitamin E to hand lotion -- but vitamin E is meant to go in your stomach, not your lungs. Inhaled oil can trigger lipoid pneumonia. (For the chemistry behind this phenomenon, read my colleague Dr. Josh Bloom's article.) Similarly, products purchased from the local black market may contain chemicals that are unsafe.

While an investigation is ongoing into the exact nature of the problem, so far, the likeliest explanation is that improper use of vaping devices has led to some people getting sick or dying. But that sort of nuance isn't governing the thinking of the FDA or CDC, both of which are allowing myths and fear-mongering to drive their policies and public statements.

Source: Everything Goes To Pot: Myths Are Driving FDA, CDC Vaping Policy

It really does seem like cigarettes vs vaping is a "lesser evil" type of thing. The latter is less immediately harsh on the throat IME, at the very least.

If it's not air, it's bad for your lungs. Hell, even smoggy city air can make you sick.

Now excuse me while I take a massive rip from my bong...

Tabacco has been used as an insect killer for hundred of years.

According to the recalls and safety alerts on the Government of Canada's website, there is a potential risk of pulmonary illness from vaping products. There have been several cases of acute illness and deaths reportedly liked to vaping in the states.

But there hasn't been any evidence of it in Canada, and the warning is so vague. I mean, just breathing normal air is potential risk of pulmonary illness.

Personally, I don't get the point of vaping. I think blowing bubbles a la Spongebob is a lot safer and more fun.

There seems to be bias on just about every side of the matter so I can't grab a source and say authoritatively whether it's fine or not based on it. Studies have employed various methodologies, individual users are using a wide array of equipment of differing designs, etc.

All I know is that I feel better since I quit smoking and switched to a vape. I keep it within what seems to be an acceptable wattage range given the parts it uses. But until there's some requirement to include the list of specific ingredients that a particular liquid for it contains I just won't know for sure.

That said, using too much wattage can cause a higher production of harmful chemicals, the likes of which are also in cigarette and pot smoke.

Every year more than 480,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking and more than 41,000 die from secondhand smoke. That means that in just one hour, more than twice as many Americans die from tobacco smoke than everyone who died from vaping-associated lung injuries thus far. While we must take the vaping epidemic seriously — especially when it involves children and young teenagers — comparing the two in terms of harm is like equating the thousands of fatalities from car accidents to the extremely rare but attention-grabbing airplane crashes that occasionally grip the news. In terms of harm reduction, air travel is orders of magnitude safer than driving, so convincing people to drive rather than fly can actually cause more deaths and injuries, despite how strongly a fiery crash stirs our fears.

The same holds true for e-cigarettes. Stories of previously healthy young patients suddenly falling ill after vaping, needing to be intubated and hooked to breathing machines, is extremely jarring and heartbreaking. But when it comes to public health, evidence matters more than emotions. While the long-term effects of vaping are unknown, e-cigarettes may be 95 per cent less harmful than smoking according to Public Health England. But even beyond that, it appears the medical community and politicians may be pointing the finger at the wrong place. According to the CDC, it is likely that black market cannabis vaping materials, rather than legitimately sold and tested e-cigarettes, are the primary cause of the acute lung injuries that have tragically claimed the lives of 26 people so far. Yet it is the legitimately sold e-cigarettes that are now subject to local government bans across the country from New York to Massachusetts to California, potentially driving vapers to use far more deadly traditional cigarettes.

Because marijuana is illegal under federal law, an entire do-it-yourself black market vaping industry has risen to meet illicit demand in the same way moonshine grew in popularity during the Prohibition era of the 1920s. And just like moonshine, which came with contaminants like lead and methanol from using automotive radiators as stills that led to blindness and death, these black market THC vapes are proving to be equally harmful and deadly.

Adapting the same e-cigarette technology used for nicotine vaping, THC vapes use a lithium-ion battery to send electrical current through a wire that is coiled several times to create resistance and heat. An absorbent wick, usually cotton, brings the e-liquid to the heated wire, which is then aerosolized and inhaled by the user. At every step for every component it takes to make these black market vapes, there is the potential for disaster.

For example, there are smartphone apps, like Pocket Vapor Calculator, that instruct users on how many turns of the wire to make to achieve a desired resistance for the desired amount of heat. But if there’s a miscalculation — say, making too many turns of the wire or using wire that is too thin — then the vape pen can vaporize a slew of toxic metal and nickel nanoparticles that can damage the lungs and perhaps even cause acute eosinophilic pneumonia. That’s a rare disorder where immune cells called eosinophils to migrate to the lungs, resulting in incredible damage. Acute eosinophilic pneumonia has been observed in some of the patients with vaping injuries.

Then there’s the matter of the black market e-liquid itself. A few early but conflicting reports suggest that the vaping-associated lung injuries resemble lipoid pneumonia, a rare disease that can occur when a patient inhales an oily substance that gets into the tiny air sacs of the lungs. Oil in the lungs where it doesn’t belong causes massive inflammation and damage. We’ve seen this in children with cerebral palsy and elderly patients who have accidentally inhaled or aspirated mineral oil-based laxatives. But it can theoretically occur with black market vaping pens too, especially if they have been adulterated to contain high amounts of oil in the e-liquid that is aerosolized and inhaled.

It is still pretty much unknown at this point whether the adulterant is mineral oil, vegetable oil, or even vitamin E acetate as some reports are suggesting. But the reason lipoid pneumonia is suspected is because during a bronchoalveolar lavage — a procedure in which cells are collected from the lung by washing them back with saline under the guidance of a flexible camera and a suction tool — physicians discovered macrophage immune cells that consumed enough oil to stain red with a special dye. It still remains to be seen whether this is because of oil that was inhaled from the black market THC vapes or because vaping damaged the surfactant of the lung, which would allow the macrophages to consume the oils within the lung itself. Suffice it to say, we are all still trying to determine the cause, probably in the same way doctors in the 1920s may have been perplexed by people coming in with a variety of illnesses after making moonshine in the radiators of their own cars.

While using deaths caused by black market vapes to scapegoat the entire e-cigarette industry is unethical, the situation is complex because the vaping industry is guilty of its own terrible misdeeds. Companies like Juul, one of the most popular e-cigarette makers in the US, used deceptive marketing practices to target teens and schoolchildren. Juul even sent company representatives to schools and youth camps, sometimes without the teacher in the room, to promote vaping with enticing flavors like mango, mint, and cucumber.

Since the developing teenage brain is especially vulnerable to addictive behaviors and nicotine, tobacco companies like Altria, which owns a 35 per cent stake in Juul, appear to have hedged their bets with e-cigarettes to get a whole new generation hooked on nicotine — presumably make up for all the customers they lost from, you know, dying from tobacco. So instead of just serving as a harm reduction tool to cajole smokers to quit tobacco, vaping has now made nicotine “cool” again, or as cool as a cucumber flavor to entice kids.

Vaping has emerged as the fastest growing epidemic among teens in schools, who would have never taken up smoking yet are now new users of e-cigarettes. According to the National Youth Tobacco Study, more than 3.6 million middle and high schoolers used e-cigarettes in 2018, which is up more than double from 1.5 million in 2017. Unfortunately, many kids believe that e-cigarettes are harmless compared to smoking, which contributes to this massive epidemic.

Yet this serious epidemic of teen vaping, which must be addressed, has nothing to do with the mysterious vaping injuries and deaths from black market THC vapes. Conflating the two is not only dishonest given the available evidence, but it is also harmful for patients.

In essence, there are three main issues going on simultaneously. First, there is a plague of tobacco smoking that claims the most lives by far and is the most clear and present danger to public health. Second, there is a growing epidemic of teen vaping that is getting a whole new generation addicted to nicotine. Third, there are people falling deathly ill because of black market THC vapes. All three problems can be solved if we tackle them separately, without fear-mongering and manipulating the truth.

When it comes to smoking, e-cigarettes can be a powerful harm reduction tool to get tobacco users to quit their deadly vice. According to a large randomized trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine, e-cigarettes are more effective for smoking cessation than nicotine replacement therapy. Telling vapers to go back to smoking, or convincing smokers to keep smoking and not even give vaping a chance, causes great harm to society and must stop immediately. We should promote all ways possible to get smokers to quit or switch to less harmful methods of nicotine consumption.

When it comes to the teen vaping epidemic, the government needs to crack down on deceptive marketing practices targeting children in schools. While adults enjoy flavors that do not remind them of tobacco, there has to be a balance here such that companies are not enticing children to start vaping pods that taste like mango or cotton candy. Even Juul seems to have acknowledged this by recently announcing that it will stop selling all flavored e-cigarettes in the United States, including “mango, creme, fruit, and cucumber,” ahead of a likely FDA ban.

Source: I'm an American doctor. Here's the truth about Juul, vaping and legalizing marijuana

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced Friday that further laboratory tests confirm that THC-containing e-cigarette or vaping products are in fact “linked to most of the cases and play a major role in the outbreak” of recent vaping lung injuries and deaths.

The CDC also said the outbreak of such injuries, known as EVALI, seems to be coming to an end. Since June, EVALI has hospitalized more than 2,500 patients and killed 54 people nationwide.

Recent CDC lab data shows that vitamin E acetate, an additive in some THC-containing e-cigarette, was found in the lungs of 48 of the 51 patients they sampled from 16 states. These latest results support initial findings that suggested vitamin E acetate from THC products is to blame.

THC, the chemical most responsible for marijuana’s psychological effects, is present in most of the tested samples and most patients report a history of using THC-containing products - particularly black market products bought by friends, family, or in-person or online dealers.

The EVALI outbreak coincides with a fast-growing THC-vaping black market supplied by domestic and international criminal organizations.

Ray Donovan, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Special Agent in Charge in New York, said the number of illegal THC vaping products seized by their office has grown exponentially in the state from just 38 in 2017 to more than 210,000 in 2019.

“They’re being manufactured on the West Coast, Asia or in Mexico and smuggled by international organizations into the United States,” Donovan said. “It’s very easy. You can go online and get this product. You can have it delivered to your doorstep.”

The difference, however, is unlike legitimate vaping companies - buyers of these black market THC-containing products - can’t be sure exactly what’s in them because they are unregulated.

Source: CDC confirms black market THC vaping products main source of deadly outbreak