Vaping is marketed as a safer alternative to smoking. And the majority of consumers take this statement for things. Far not everybody is interested in the latest research.
Have you heard the proverb “Words are the wise man’s counters and the fool’s money”? To avoid being made a fool of, make yourself acknowledged in the area. In this article, you’ll find everything you need to know and if you’re looking for vaping products, check out this vape shop.
Smoking and Its Ingredients
Let’s compare the ingredients of tobacco products and mods from vapingdaily’s list first.
Tobacco smoke consists of thousands of chemicals. The most commonly quoted figure is 7,000. And 250 of them are identified as harmful and 70 as carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals).
Indeed, some substances are quite scary:
- Ammonia – an ingredient of household cleaning products used to clean floors and toilets;
- Benzene is present in pesticides and gasoline.
- Cyanide – a chemical used in rat poison;
- Formaldehyde – a chemical used to preserve dead animals;
- Cadmium – a toxic heavy metal used in batteries;
- Carbon monoxide is present in car exhaust and can be lethal in large amounts.
- Methanol – an alternative fuel for internal combustion and other engines.
- Nicotine – the addictive chemical.
A nasty cocktail, isn’t it? Interestingly, you won’t find a lot of these toxic chemicals in a tobacco leaf, and they are not used in the process of creating a cigarette. They are produced during combustion.
Vaping and its Ingredients
The process of vaping removes the need to combust any materials. Thus, a handful of the dangerous chemicals listed above are not created. A vaping device, be it a simple cig-a-like or the best vape mod, heats a liquid, also called e-juice, and the user inhales a vapor.
Though the choice of e-juices id bewildering, they are all made of a few essential ingredients:
- Vegetable glycerin (VG)
- Propylene glycol (PG)
- Nicotine.
Both VG and PG are used in a variety of foods, cosmetics, even some medicines, and are deemed safe by the FDA.
E-liquid may contain some optional ingredients, like flavorings and sweeteners. Flavor concentrates are usually produced by companies that manufacture food flavorings or fragrances. Sweeteners are mainly made of sucralose.
The opponents of vaping say that the ingredients used to produce e-liquids are safe only if they are ingested, not inhaled. This sends us to the biggest and not yet researched question in this area. The long-term effects of vaping remain unknown.
So, the most dangerous substance in an e-liquid turns out to be nicotine. There’re nicotine-free e-juices on the vaping market, but they are not accessible.
Several studies found some toxic stuff vapor. They are acetaldehyde, acrolein, diethylene glycol, formaldehyde, isoprene, lead, nickel, nitrosamines, and some others.
Unfortunately, vaping manufacture is not appropriately regulated. There’s no consistency of the ingredients in e-liquids or electronic smoking devices.
Poor quality vaporizers may release metals when they are heated. Some e-liquids were found to contain diacetyl, a chemical that was once used to give popcorn its buttery taste. Inhalation of this chemical can lead to a severe lung disease known as “popcorn lung.”
The lack of quality control is a significant concern. That’s why it’s best to buy vape mod kits from respectable brands. Some companies produce vaporizers of top quality, which feature thermal protection, reverse battery protection, short circuit protection, and other safety features.
Can Vaping Lead to Any Disease?
The hazards of smoking are well-known. They include nicotine addiction, various forms of cancer, heart attack, and heart stroke, early death, congenital disabilities.
Although vaping is not harmless, the evidence is unambiguous that it’s a much safer practice than smoking. But misinformation and panic in the media are still putting smokers off switching.
Vaping nicotine-containing liquid can lead to nicotine addiction. At present, the risks of using electronic smoking devices are unknown, as the invention is relatively new. But they are considered to be relatively low, especially in comparison with tobacco smoking.
A 2017 study published at Annals of Internal Medicine found out that former smokers who used only electronic cigarettes for more than six months had lower levels of carcinogens and other toxic compounds than smokers of combustible cigarettes.
Another study that compared the number of carcinogens in vapor and tobacco smoke estimated that cancer risk from vaping is only 1% of that from smoking. This result falls within the orders of magnitude of a medicinal nicotine inhaler.
So, What Is Safer?
Your lungs, as well as other body organs, will be happy if you stay away from both smoking and vaping. But if you’re already addicted to nicotine or want to quit smoking with the help of a vape box mod, know that you may be making the right choice.
With 7000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, 200 in vapor doesn’t seem such a huge number. Indeed, vapor seems to be quite safe except for the nicotine.
The researchers from the University of California, San Diego, conducted an fascinating study in 2017. They measured the indoor air quality in 193 family homes with smokers. It was found out that smoking of tobacco and marijuana, burning candles, and even cooking reduced air quality more than using vape mods.
If you worry about your family or other people you may vape near, then we have some good news for you. According to a 2016 study done by the University of California-San Francisco, 93.8% of the inhaled nicotine is retained by the user, and only a small part is the exhaled vapor.
A debate on whether vaping is safe or not is not going down. But it’s already clear to everyone that vaping is more reliable than smoking. E-cigarettes either don’t contain or have much lower levels of tobacco-derived harmful components than combustible cigarettes. And vaping offers an opportunity for harm reduction if smokers use e-cigs as substitutes for tobacco products.
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