He spent a decade since electronic cigarettes have appeared on the market.
Since then, the popularity soared to the heights, with nearly 3 million adults to use in Great Britain today.
But this rapid popularity and the ability of these devices to help people quit smoking, had to face some challenges. The largest of these is that the investigations into their safety had to carry out race to be timely.
Many studies have shown that electronic cigarettes appear to be much safer than smoking. However, there is still the big misunderstanding that electronic cigarettes are as harmful as smoking, and this could prevent smokers who would benefit from switching from smoking to electronic cigarette.
Now, a new study by UCL's (University College London) scientists terminates these concerns. And depending on how you define the term "long-term", the findings of this study are the most convincing elements that exist so far.
The Electronic Cigarettes are safer than smoking.
Smoking is the world's number one cause of deaths that could have been avoided, with numbers reaching the 6 million deaths each year. This is due to the lethal cocktail of more than 5,000 chemicals found in cigarette smoke, of which at least 70 are carcinogenic.
Electronic cigarettes, on the other hand, do not contain smoke. Instead, they use a liquid that contains nicotine (if the user desires), which is heated and vaporized and the user inhales the steam. The presence of nicotine in the electronic cigarette refill fluid satisfies the smoker's dependence on nicotine but does not cause cancer.
The fact that electronic cigarettes do not produce smoke and the thousands of chemicals contained in it has always advocated that these devices must be safer than smoking. But when electronic cigarettes appeared on the market, there were not enough scientific studies to support this conclusion with certainty. For this reason, scientists from all over the world have conducted surveys to understand what exactly is contained in electronic cigarettes and what the effects of these products.
Early studies have shown that the fluid used as well as the generated steam electronic cigarettes do not contain the same level of toxic chemicals present in smoke cigarettes. In fact, the levels of these substances in electronic cigarettes measured at such low levels that led to the organization of England Public Health and the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom to estimate that electronic cigarettes are approximately 95% safer than tobacco cigarettes.
Until today, however, no one had looked at exactly what the daily, long-term users are exposed to. The new study by Dr Lion Shahab is the first of its kind to examine the impact of electronic cigarettes on what is called "long-term use.»,
How safe is it?
The study was conducted in a vapers group using electronic cigarettes average time 17 months and measured levels of nicotine and 26 potentially harmful chemicals in the body examining urine and saliva samples.
The results of this group were compared with the group counts smokers smoke cigarettes as well as the people using measurements and electronic and smoke cigarettes. Moreover, the scientists looked at people who use nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), which are used to help smokers to quit smoking or long-term substitutes.
"We investigated the nicotine replacement therapy users because we know that these products are safe to use," says Dr Shahab. "We thought it would be good comparison because the long-term users (these substitutes) get their dose of nicotine from a source without smoke. As users of electronic cigarettes. "He added.
Interestingly, the levels of nicotine were detected in the samples of electronic cigarette users are very close to those of people who use nicotine replacement (NRT) and to those of smokers.
"One of the reasons people use electronic cigarettes is to quit and proved that (electronic cigarettes) provide effective nicotine intake," says Dr Shahab.
But the great breakthrough came when group examined samples for possibly toxic chemicals. They found that there was a significant difference in the levels of these substances among the different groups tested. In fact, a chemical called NNAL (responsible for lung cancer induction), the group of the electronic cigarette users was 97% lower than the rate of the smoking group.
Not only e-cigarette users had lower percentages of these substances than smokers but had similar percentages with NRT users (nicotine substitutes), which substitutes - Dr Shahab points out - are known to be relatively safe. "We have 30 years of research on with the safety of NRT (nicotine substitutes) and no significant health effects have arisen from their long-term use,» λέει.
So if electronic cigarettes have the same effect on the body as an established smoking cessation treatment, can we assume that it is just as safe? While nothing can be considered "absolutely safe", we can compare electronic cigarettes with other things we use everyday in our lives.
We still need to be careful with electronic cigarettes.
Unfortunately we are not yet 100% sure. There remains a number of questions that this research did not answer.
The first is that people who used electronic cigarettes along with tobacco smoke were not found to have reduced toxic chemicals. And a large number of fumigants still smoke.
"The ultimate benefit of the use of electronic cigarettes comes from the complete cessation of smoking." λέει ο Shahab. "The health benefits resulting from the significant reduction of these chemicals and not realize such reduction in people using combination electronic cigarettes and smoke cigarettes." And while this study found significantly lower levels of these substances in the steamer than in smokers, these chemicals remain..
The study did not compare the prices of these chemicals with human values do not smoke is not used, or electronic cigarette. So, it is not known what the differences will be exactly. If these chemicals are discovered that are at a higher rate in steamer than in non-smokers then there is still the possibility to note a failure rate.
According to Shahab, the next step will be to check signs of damage to the health of these four groups of people instead of measuring the levels of harmful chemicals. It will take decades, however, to find such differences.
We also know that different electronic cigarette users using different devices and replacement fluids. It can therefore occur that some systems and liquids are safer than others. Still, users use their devices in different ways. It must therefore be more work to understand these differences so that every steamer to use the device in the safest possible way. We intend to play a major role in answering these questions and what exactly we established the UK E-Cigarette Research Forum which is comprised of the leading researchers of tobacco and electronic cigarettes in the country.
What exactly does that mean?
This study confirms that electronic cigarettes are much safer than tobacco cigarettes. If you are a smoker the best thing you can do for your health is to stop smoking. The most effective way to do this is through a free office "Stop Smoking Services".
As is known, a number of people managed to quit smoking using an electronic cigarette combined with the support of a specialist.
This does not mean that electronic cigarettes are completely safe. If you're not a smoker, you do not have to start steaming. We can not at present be sure to all the long-term effects of all market devices and all fluids replacement.
So while it is unlikely electronic cigarettes prove absolutely safe (nothing is "absolutely safe") the results of this research are a milestone demonstrating how much safer are compared with tobacco cigarettes.
