Which is better for lungs vaping or smoking?
Vaping has come under public scrutiny of late.
What was once hailed as the savior of smokers is now being vilified for potential health concerns. The Trump Administration has proposed banning flavored electronic cigarettes.
Moreover, this move, sparked by a recent outbreak of lung disease, moreover that doctors have blamed on the use of vaping. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were 380 “probable and “confirmed cases.
And at least six people have died from the illness. Just this Monday, the Food & Drug Administration sent a letter to one of the leading Vape manufacturers, Juul. Warning the company not to advertise their products as reduced risk compared to traditional tobacco products.
Yet there are those who stand behind the reduced safety risk of vaping. Michael Blaha, M.D. M.P.H., director of clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease says:
“there’s almost no doubt that they expose you to fewer toxic chemicals than traditional cigarettes.”
But, Blaha finds cause for alarm in the growing usage of electronic cigarettes among youths and says:
“What I find most concerning about the rise of vaping is that people who would’ve never smoked otherwise. Especially youth, are taking up the habit,”
“It’s one thing if you convert from cigarette smoking to vaping. It’s quite another thing to start up nicotine use with vaping. And, it often leads to using traditional tobacco products down the road.”
Now the American Heart Association Claims that Vaping:
“Causes Severe Strokes and is More Risky than Smoking.”
Moreover, the American Heart Association claimed that “vaping causes severe strokes and poses a higher risk of severe strokes than smoking.“
According to the AHA’s press release:
“E-cigarettes may pose the same or higher risk of stroke severity as tobacco smoke. … Electronic cigarette (e-cigarettes) vaping may pose just as much or even higher risk as smoking tobacco for worsening a stroke, according to a preliminary study in mice presented at the American Heart Association’s International Stroke Conference 2017. … From a brain health perspective, researchers said, electronic-cigarette vaping is not safer than tobacco smoking, and may pose a similar, if not higher risk for stroke severity.”
However some contend that the AHA’s release was wrong. The AHA’s findings were based on studies with Rats, and these studies have inherent flaws:
“There are, of course, significant physiological, neuroanatomical and metabolic differences between humans and small rodents, which are the most widely used experimental animals in preclinical stroke research. For example, small rodents usually require higher drug doses on a mg/kg body weight basis for a similar effect than larger mammals. Thus, effective doses derived from preclinical stroke studies in small rodents cannot simply be transferred to the situation in humans, even if adjusted for body weight.”
-Scientific Researchers Braeuninger and Kleinschnitz Rodent models of focal cerebral ischemia: procedural pitfalls and translational problems | Experimental & Translational Stroke Medicine | Full Text (biomedcentral.com)
So as with much in science, there is no definitive answer to our question.
Sources:
E-cigarettes may pose the same or higher risk | EurekAlert!
