Is Vaping Healthy?

Fashion does not stop spreading, especially among teenagers and young people. The youngest ones love the possibility of practicing an adult ritual and incidentally making rings with the dense steam or hiding among its mysterious scrolls.

And they end up buying a vaper because “it is not bad for their health”, or they want to convince themselves of it. So these young people start with the vaper, which also interests those who are already back and want to quit tobacco. They wonder if it is really a healthy practice or are they going to come out of the fire to get into the embers.

What’s in vaper smoke? It is healthy?

The first thing is to know what a vaper or electronic cigarette is: it is a device that uses a battery and a resistance to heat and vaporize a liquid solution with different ingredients. The smoke or, rather, the vapor, is inhaled by the user, who can circulate it through the lungs (“swallowing it”) or not.

With or without nicotine

Each of the characteristics must be analyzed to try to determine the effect on health. Let’s start with the liquid solution, which seems the most important. It may or may not contain nicotine.

The one that contains nicotine is used to progressively get rid of tobacco, since you can choose liquids with different degrees of concentration. This is why it is used in tobacco cessation therapy in a similar way to nicotine patches or gum.

It should be remembered that nicotine is a stimulating substance , toxic from certain doses and addictive, but its carcinogenicity has not been proven. Tobacco is carcinogenic due to other substances resulting from combustion, not due to nicotine.

Propylene Glycol, Glycerin and Flavors

Most vaping liquids contain three more ingredients: propylene glycol (around 70%), vegetable glycerin (30%) and aromas.

Propylene Glycol is an oily alcohol, widely used in a variety of products, from paints to medicines. Its vapors can cause irritation of the respiratory tract of some sensitive people and more often in the eyes. For this reason it is recommended that it not be used in one of its many applications: fog making in discos and theaters.

There are liquid solutions for vaper without propellant glycol that would avoid its potential drawbacks.

The vegetable glycerine – the same used to make soaps naturales- is not, in principle problematic for a healthy person. A couple of cases of lipoid pneumonia have been reported in which doctors attributed it to the glycerin of the vaper, but this etiology has been disputed by other specialists and there is no scientific consensus that relates glycerin to the disease.

Finally, aromas are generally compounds of synthetic origin (derived from petroleum). These aromas are usually food additives and some experts warn that there is no certainty about their effect when inhaled.

In addition to the ingredients, it is important to consider heating. The vaper heats the liquid to produce steam up to a maximum temperature of 65 ºC, which is why a combustion process comparable to conventional cigarettes does not take place and the volatile toxic compounds that are associated are not generated.

There may be unknown ingredients

Several scientific studies have found in the vapor traces of carcinogens or neurotoxins such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein and diacetyl, but always in concentrations far below (between 10 and 450 times less) than that of tobacco cigarettes.

It is difficult to know what is really in a liquid to vape. There are no regulations and very different compounds can be included under the heading “aromas”.

That is why the study carried out by the professor of environmental chemistry Joan Grimalt at the Institute for Environmental Research and Water, of the Higher Council for Scientific Research, is interesting.

Grimalt tried to determine the organic and inorganic compounds that are actually inhaled by vaper users and passive vapers, and compared them to those found in tobacco smoke.

In the steam from the vaper he only found significant amounts of propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine and, in some cases, vanilla. There were other toxic compounds as well, but in proportions similar to those found in city air.

Like a nicotine patch

In contrast, in tobacco smoke it detected more than 1,200 compounds, including various forms of nicotine, and some carcinogens and neurotoxic substances. For Grimalt, the vaper is comparable to nicotine gum or patches.

To the compounds mentioned so far, the possible presence in the vapor of metallic particles from the resistance should be added.

Chemist Miroslaw Dworniczak believes that users should be aware of this and avoid the practice of reddening the resistors to clean them, which could alter the behavior of the metal and facilitate the release of particles.

Health authorities do not agree

We have tried to summarize the essential factors to assess whether vaping is healthy or not. But the subject is complex enough that dozens of scientific studies have been published that have sometimes obtained contradictory results (some studies have found carcinogenic compounds in vapor and others have not, which may be due to the variety of devices and liquid solutions present. in the market).

It would be expected that national and international health authorities had thoroughly analyzed the issue and offered citizens a useful conclusion, but the truth is that so far the reactions have been different and contradictory.

In Spain, the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System, dependent on the Ministry of Health, released a communication last February in which it indicated that ” health risks cannot be excluded” from electronic cigarettes and warned of that “they generate an aerosol that contains nicotine in equal or greater measure than the traditional cigarette” and advised “not to consume any of these products”.

In this way, the Spanish government focused on the problem of nicotine and did not clarify anything to users interested in vapers without this substance.

A tool to quit smoking

In the UK the issue recently came to the House of Commons and the science and technology commission’s conclusion was that vapers can be an effective means of quitting smoking (just the opposite of what the Spanish authorities think, which they consider it a gateway to tobacco).

The Commons estimate that there are half a million people in the UK who are in the process of quitting with the help of the vaper.

For this reason, they believe that the same rules should not be imposed on vapers as smokers, and recommend that they be allowed to vape in transportation and other public spaces where smoking is prohibited.

It’s not like tobacco

Not that they are sure vaping is safe and healthy, but they claim that there is not yet a level of evidence of the risks on the same level as that of tobacco. Their position is that the advantage it now represents over tobacco outweighs a possible risk that has just been tested in the future.

What can an ordinary citizen think to take care of his health?

If you smoke, in this case the end may justify the means. If vaping helps you quit smoking, welcome to temporarily.

If you do not smoke tobacco, it is worth asking yourself if it makes sense to start a habit that represents inhaling a mixture of substances whose composition includes synthetic ingredients and probably some unknown ones, when it does not suppose any advantage for health, implies an economic expense and causes certain alarm around us in other people convinced that this smoke hurts them.

If the pleasure is in the aroma, do we really not have enough and are not the myriad flavors and smells that food, spices, medicinal plants, flowers or essential oils provide safer ?

If ritual is appealing to you, ask yourself if you’re looking to prove you’re not a child, attract attention, be part of a group, or calm your anxiety with a substitute for warm emotional food. All of these issues can be addressed without subjecting your body to an unnecessary dose of risk.