As vaping is more popular than ever, a heart surgeon has shared three reasons you shouldn’t use e-cigarettes.
The electronic devices simulate tobacco smoking by inhaling vapor, a flavored liquid that contains nicotine.
Three reasons why you shouldn’t vape
In a viral TikTok video, Dr. Jeremy London said you should quit vaping for these three reasons:
1. You’re exposing yourself to more ‘smoke’
First, he explained that as vaping has become “very socially acceptable,” you don’t have to go outside or to a designated area to use vapes like you do with cigarettes. As a result, people vape more than they do when they smoke cigarettes, which exposes your lungs to the ‘smoke’ in a “much greater volume”.
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The cloud emitted from an e-cigarette isn’t actually smoke, it’s amist of liquid droplets produced when the e-liquid is heated. However, a 2018 report in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that vapes still contain harmful chemicals that can cause irreversible lung damage when inhaled.
This includes acetaldehyde, acrolein, and formaldehyde, which can cause lung disease and cardiovascular disease. E-cigarettes also contain acrolein, a herbicide used to kill weeds that can cause acute lung injury and Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and may cause asthma and lung cancer.
2. The nicotine levels are unpredictable
Secondly, the heart surgeon said the amount of nicotine in vape solution is “unpredictable” and usually much higher than in cigarettes, so it is “more dangerous and more addictive than actually smoking cigarettes”.
As explained by the NHS, a standard disposable vape delivers a similar amount of nicotine as 20 cigarettes. Nicotine is relatively harmless to human health on its own, but the method used to consume the substance is harmful.
In cigarettes, tobacco is burned to inhale nicotine, which causes cancer, lung disease, heart disease and stroke.
3. Inhaling oil droplets can damage lungs
Most importantly, Dr. London explained that you’re inhaling small oil droplets directly into your lungs that can be very harmful.
“This damages the air sacks in the lungs and the oil that gets trapped in there cannot be cleared by the body and is there forever,” he said.
E-cigarettes have been linked to Lipoid pneumonia, a rare condition that occurs when oil or fat enters the lungs, a report in the ScienceDirect journal explains. The e-liquid used in vapes contain water, flavorings and nicotine, as well as other chemicals including Vegetable Glycerine and Propylene Glycol.
The only time people should vape
There’s only one occasion that people should be encouraged to vape – when it’s used as an alternative to smoking cigarettes. The NHS explains that while nicotine vaping is not risk-free, it is “substantially less harmful than smoking”.
Most of the harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke, including tar and carbon monoxide, which are released by burning tobacco, are not contained in vape aerosol. People who switch from smoking to vaping have significantly reduced exposure to these toxins, which are associated with cancer, lung disease, heart disease and stroke.
Evidence has found that vapes are one of the most effective stop-smoking aids, more effective than nicotine replacement therapies, like patches or gum.
Dr. Jeremy London is a board certified cardiovascular surgeon with more than 31 years experience who has his own practice in Savannah, Georgia.
