There can’t be too many people in the world that believe smoking is not harmful to health. Yet, smoking causes more preventable deaths than anything else. And in the US, over 480,000 individuals die from smoking each year.
The CDC's report shows about 58 percent of these fatalities are male.
The majority of smokers would love to quit cigarettes completely, but nicotine is hard to kick and is highly addictive.
Giving up cigarettes is difficult, to put it mildly. Therefore, millions of people have moved over to vaping products instead, but are they actually any better?
Is vaping better for your health than tobacco smoking?
The UK's National Health Service reports that vaping is less harmful than smoking pre-rolled cigarettes. In part, vaping is better due to the toxins involved in cigarette smoke. The NHS also points out that vaping can be helpful when quitting smoking.
Searching an Elf Bar shop online will show cigarette smokers the alternatives they have available if they are intending to cut out tobacco. The liquids used in vaping may be safer than smoking tobacco containing countless harmful chemicals.
Teeth and gums
The Academy of General Dentistry carried out research showing that the average smoker could expect to lose anywhere between 1 and 5 teeth during their lifetime as a direct result from cigarettes.
Oral hygiene can be impacted through smoking, and lead to tooth decay, gum disease, and mouth cancer. Vaping impacts oral health far less than tobacco. Nicotine can damage teeth and gums so if 0% nicotine e-liquids are used, there should be even fewer risks.
Less risk of serious diseases
It's a medical fact that tobacco smoking causes cancer. And, 8 million people die from smoking every year across the world.
The vast majority of these deaths are from people using tobacco products (7 million) with about 1 million or more dying from secondhand smoke exposure.
Preventable diseases from smoking cigarettes include:
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Lung cancer
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Heart disease
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Mouth and throat cancer
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Bronchitis
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Emphysema
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COPD
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Diabetes
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Stroke
Cigarette smoke affects the immune system negatively. Smoking can also exacerbate other illnesses including asthma, blood pressure, and arthritis.
Stress can be managed by reducing nicotine levels
Many people believe still that smoking a cigarette can help with stressful situations, but nicotine makes people more sensitive to symptoms of anxiety and stress.
Cigarettes with low levels of nicotine are available but they still contain tar and other toxic chemicals. E-liquids however are available completely nicotine free. Therefore, someone could vape without inhaling nicotine which might help to handle symptoms of stress better. At the very least, the addictive ingredient of nicotine won’t be in the smoker’s system.
Fewer chemical additives
The ingredients making up commercial pre-rolled cigarettes are astounding. There are more than 7,000 chemicals in cigarettes. 250 chemicals in cigarettes are harmful. Plus, at least 70 more ingredients in cigarettes are known to be carcinogenic.
One cigarette contains the following and a whole lot more:
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Arsenic
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Ammonia
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Methylamine
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Methanol
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Polonium - 210
Toluene is another toxic chemical found in cigarette tobacco, and another use for it is in explosives. And what about Polonium-210? This rather space-age-sounding chemical is used in nuclear weapons. Every day, smokers around the globe inhale these and thousands of other nasty chemicals.
Secondhand smoking dangers
One reason that many people have switched to vapes is because of smoking bans in public places, and an increased understanding of the dangers of secondhand smoke.
Smoking bans have no doubt helped the vaping and e-cigarette industry to its $22.45 billion revenue last year and projected growth of a CAGR of 30.60% up to 2030.
The director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Queen Mary University of London stated that secondhand vapor has not shown any health dangers to bystanders. So, it could be that vaping is safer for other people than the smoker than cigarette smoke is.
Will there be a time when smoking is completely prohibited?
Realistically, there could be a time when cigarette manufacturing ceases to exist. At the end of 2022, New Zealand passed a law banning smoking for anyone born after or on January 1st, 2009. And last year, The City of Sarasota also moved to ban smoking on its beaches to become smoke-free citywide.
Summary
It seems that vape juice appears to be a better alternative to tobacco for smokers. Vapes may be less harmful to bystanders, they contain fewer chemicals, and vapes can help a person to reduce their nicotine intake and finally quit altogether.
The majority of toxic chemicals in cigarettes are omitted from e-liquids. Those that are included are at far lower levels. This alone makes vaping a better choice than smoking, and one that may lead to people quitting cigarettes and therefore helping to prevent more deaths.
