New Study says e-cigarettes may lead to cancer and heart disease

[Fez909]

It makes me laugh that petrol stations still have the 'no mobile phones' signs. Because the signals going to ignite the reservoirs of fuel underneath or something.

 

[Corax]

I'm on 18mg and I have no intention to cut down for health reasons. I'm not chucking all the tar etc down my pipes so it's already a massive improvement. I've read about nicotine increasing heart attack risk etc, but so does going for a run. If I want to increase my longevity then giving up smoking (and drinking) is already a big plus, and shedding about 5 stone and doing the occasional bit of moderate exercise are probably the next most obvious things on the list.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm on 18mg and I have no intention to cut down for health reasons. I'm not chucking all the tar etc down my pipes so it's already a massive improvement. I've read about nicotine increasing heart attack risk etc, but so does going for a run. If I want to increase my longevity then giving up smoking (and drinking) is already a big plus, and shedding about 5 stone and doing the occasional bit of moderate exercise are probably the next most obvious things on the list.

I've been vaping for five years now. I dropped from 24 to 18 when 18 became the new legal maximum. That was ok, but bought some 6 by mistake and tried to use it, and I was puffing away like crazy and still not feeling it. Went straight back up to 18, which felt like getting my comfort blanket back.

Pathetic, addiction, really, but I'm still not up for giving up nicotine.

 

[Celyn]

I can't say I've ever known a tobacco cigarette to explode

How true! Cigarettes and cigars, a bit useless at exploding. Ask Fidel Castro and the CIA.

 

[Celyn]

I was considering taking up vaping, but have no interest in smoking nicotine. Are there figures for the risks for non-nicotine vapers?

I don't know, but there are suggestions that some of the "flavours" might possibly be a bit unhealthy.
Some E-Cigarette Flavors May Be More Harmful Than Others

E-cigarette flavors are toxic to white blood cells, warn scientists: Cinnamon, vanilla and buttery e-cigarette flavors are among the most toxic -- and mixing flavors is more damaging than vaping just one

I think there are some more proper papers elsewhere, but's late. If you want the smoking cigs aspect but don't want nicotine, well, you simply buy tobacco-ey flavour with no nicotine.

 

[Corax]

Pathetic, addiction, really, but I'm still not up for giving up nicotine.

All of human existence is essentially the negotiation of a series of addictions of one sort or another.

Hashtag Deep.

 

[Corax]

I don't know, but there are suggestions that some of the "flavours" might possibly be a bit unhealthy.
Some E-Cigarette Flavors May Be More Harmful Than Others

E-cigarette flavors are toxic to white blood cells, warn scientists: Cinnamon, vanilla and buttery e-cigarette flavors are among the most toxic -- and mixing flavors is more damaging than vaping just one

I think there are some more proper papers elsewhere, but's late. If you want the smoking cigs aspect but don't want nicotine, well, you simply buy tobacco-ey flavour with no nicotine.

Or crack.

 

[WouldBe]

I've just read the paper, and have a few questions, if there's any biologists/scientists on the boards:

They administered a dose of "10 mg/mL, 3 h/d, 5 d/wk) for 12 wk; the dose and duration equivalent in human terms to light E-cig smoking for 10 y"

These "scientists" do know that mice are a lot smaller than humans don't they? 10mg /fag will work out at a lot lower dose per Kg in humans than it will in mice. @scientists.

 

[scifisam]

These "scientists" do know that mice are a lot smaller than humans don't they? 10mg /fag will work out at a lot lower dose per Kg in humans than it will in mice. @scientists.

I'm assuming that's bad reporting - surely giving teeny tiny mice the same dose as a human would just kill them outright?

 

[Fez909]

These "scientists" do know that mice are a lot smaller than humans don't they? 10mg /fag will work out at a lot lower dose per Kg in humans than it will in mice. @scientists.

That's partly my point.

I mean, I'm sure they know this, just as I'm sure it's a valid way to carry out an experiment. It's not as if we can wait the 40 years or whatever it takes at "normal" doses to see if stuff is harmful. You need a way to speed things up. Massive doses on smaller animals (inducing disease in humans normally seen as 'dodgy') is one way of doing it.

I'm just questioning whether it's valid in this case, given the recoveries we know are possible when abstaining from inhaling tobacco given a lower dose and enough 'time off'.

 

[Fez909]

I'm assuming that's bad reporting - surely giving teeny tiny mice the same dose as a human would just kill them outright?

It's not bad reporting. I took that from the published paper. It's exactly what they did.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That's partly my point.

I mean, I'm sure they know this, just as I'm sure it's a valid way to carry out an experiment. It's not as if we can wait the 40 years or whatever it takes at "normal" doses to see if stuff is harmful. You need a way to speed things up. Massive doses on smaller animals (inducing disease in humans normally seen as 'dodgy') is one way of doing it.

I'm just questioning whether it's valid in this case, given the recoveries we know are possible when abstaining from inhaling tobacco given a lower dose and enough 'time off'.

On the face of it, this does seem a pretty big flaw, and I can't find anything in the paper justifying the decision to give the mice a human-sized dose. Adult humans are something like 500 times bigger than mice.

The get-out, of course, is the 'further studies are necessary'...

 

[scifisam]

It's not bad reporting. I took that from the published paper. It's exactly what they did.

That's bizarre then. And also I really am shocked that the mice didn't die instantly.

But mice are about 19g on average so I'm not sure how they could, physically, give them that much in nicotine even in inhaled form. There must be an error there.

 

[Fez909]

On the face of it, this does seem a pretty big flaw, and I can't find anything in the paper justifying the decision to give the mice a human-sized dose. Adult humans are something like 500 times bigger than mice.

The get-out, of course, is the 'further studies are necessary'...

Surely the only justification is what I said, that it speeds up any effects....?

But the problem is - and it's my same point again, in a different form - that lots of things are harmful if you have lots of them vs 'safe' at moderate amounts.

Imagine giving a human the equivalent of 500x the daily alcohol units...you wouldn't last til dinner time

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Everything is poisonous at a large enough dose.

 

[8ball]

This study really doesn't add anything to the existing state of research.

 

[scifisam]

Everything is poisonous at a large enough dose.

Yep. And being killed by something if you ingest loads of loads of it at once doesn't necessarily tell you much about smaller long-term doses. Like if you drank enough wine in a few hours you could die that day, but many studies have shown beneficial effects from moderate wine drinking.

 

[8ball]

I seem to remember health fears raised about using mobile phones. Not just phone mast fears but putting the device to your head etc.

That was really funny - people being scared of a mast 100 yards away while happy to hold the other transceiver to their face.

 

[maomao]

Everything is poisonous at a large enough dose.

They don't say it's poisonous. They're saying it raises the risk of cancer and heart disease. None of the rats died of poisoning.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

They don't say it's poisonous. They're saying it raises the risk of cancer and heart disease. None of the rats died of poisoning.

Ok, well sam's point, then. Alcohol in large doses over a period of time can cause cancer. In small doses over a period of time, it may prevent cancer.

Bombarding a little animal with a human-sized 'small' dose of alcohol would no doubt kill it pretty quickly. A mouse's small, possibly cancer-preventing dose would need to be far tinier.

 

[scifisam]

It's stupid, because I'd be amazed if inhaling nicotine from an ecig didn't have some cancer-causing effects. It would be helpful to know by how much (I don't use them myself FWIW). But with such a ridiculously enormous dose the results aren't applicable to the real world at all.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It's stupid, because I'd be amazed if inhaling nicotine from an ecig didn't have some cancer-causing effects. It would be helpful to know by how much (I don't use them myself FWIW). But with such a ridiculously enormous dose the results aren't applicable to the real world at all.

Yep. Another way of looking at that study might be 'We gave some mice an enormous fuck-off crash course in vaping, and it still didn't kill them!'

 

[Fez909]

It's stupid, because I'd be amazed if inhaling nicotine from an ecig didn't have some cancer-causing effects. It would be helpful to know by how much (I don't use them myself FWIW). But with such a ridiculously enormous dose the results aren't applicable to the real world at all.

3% at most, from the studies that they cite.

 

[8ball]

If people are encouraged by reports such as these to stay on the fags, then this kind of presentation of science is going to be responsible for killing a lot of people.

Shoddy science journalism costs lives.

 

[8ball]

I was considering taking up vaping, but have no interest in smoking nicotine. Are there figures for the risks for non-nicotine vapers?

Hard to find due to the numbers involved.
Were you thinking of vaping CBD?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If people are encouraged by reports such as these to stay on the fags, then this kind of presentation of science is going to be responsible for killing a lot of people.

Shoddy science journalism costs lives.

Yes, well I did also wonder who funded that study. There's a fair bit of editorialising in it, such as:

E-cigs have become increasingly popular, particularly with young people (9). However, the question as to whether ECS is as harmful as TS, particularly with regard to carcinogenicity, remains a serious public health issue that deserves careful examination.

It seems a bizarre thing to claim. Why would ecs, with its entirely different chemical make-up, be 'as harmful as ts'? That strikes me as an agenda. It's also clearly not what the study was testing - it didn't have a set of mice taking in huge doses of tobacco smoke alongside the vapers and the control.

 

[elbows]

One of my favourite things about ecigs is that it has allowed me to deal with cig withdrawal symptoms in two completely separate phases, years apart.

Because when I switched to ecigs I was definitely getting enough nicotine (indeed perhaps too much at times) but I still had some withdrawal symptoms for the first week or so. Things like having sweaty flushes. The same sweaty state I would used to get if I didnt have a cig for a few hours. But if I go without the ecig for hours, I dont get the same symptoms - I can tell I'm still totally addicted to nicotine, but some of that other baggage is totally gone! I'm assuming that when I smoked, some of the physical 'withdrawal symptoms' were either addiction to other substances in cig smoke that are not in ecig vapour, or were a reaction to levels of some of these things fluctuating when I smoked.

I cannot complete this story until I actually attempt part 2, giving up the ecig, I look forward to finding out if this stuff actually helps the final act. I might even split phase 2 into two phases and give up putting nicotine in the juice before I give up inhaling the vapour altogether, so I can split the physical addiction from psychological pattern/routine habits.

 

[8ball]

Are you phasing down the nicotine concentration? That’s a fairly easy way to start dialling down the addiction.

 

[weltweit]

I am moving from 12 to 6 mg nicotine shortly, the VG is increased so I will expect more vapour, but what I hope is that I can also increase the time between vaping such that I do it less regularly. I already go from 8am to 12 noon without vaping and 12:30 till 16:30 without - so I should be able to vape less frequently when I am not at work and that could be a route to cutting down.

 

[elbows]

Are you phasing down the nicotine concentration? That’s a fairly easy way to start dialling down the addiction.

I started at 12 and got down to 6 after about a year or so later. Havent tried to reduce any further, I need to work on introducing more gaps in my usage first.

When I was a smoker I was of the 20-30 drum rollups a day variety.