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E-cigarettes, or vaporizers, have long been promoted as a much safer alternative to cigarettes, with some companies claiming their products pose virtually no cancer risk.
But alarming new research appears to turn this perceived notion on its head.
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers analyzed health data from 4.3 million former smokers and found that those who switched to vaporizers were twice as likely to die from lung cancer, compared to those who quit smoking altogether. bang.
The findings call into question public health initiatives around the world, many of which involve encouraging smokers to switch to vaporizers to prevent lung diseases.
Study author Dr. Yeon Wook Kim, a professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Seoul National University Hospital, said the results show doctors should consider the “potential harms” of e-cigarette use. when they talk about quitting smoking with their patients.
Advertised as a smoking cessation aid, many tobacco smokers have turned to these devices, which contain far fewer chemicals.
Cigarettes contain more than 7,000 chemicals, many of them carcinogenic, while vaporizers are believed to contain around 2,000.
E-cigarettes also do not produce tar or carbon monoxide, which are considered two of the most harmful elements in tobacco smoke.
However, the concern around e-cigarettes is that chemical reactions between the liquid and the metal cause the release of toxic metals such as arsenic, chromium, nickel and lead.
And more recent studies have found that these metals are associated with a host of negative health effects, such as popcorn lung, an inflammation of the lungs that causes wheezing, coughing, and difficulty breathing.
However, lung cancer as a risk factor had not yet been explored in depth, until now.
The disease affects about 234,580 Americans and causes 125,070 deaths a year.
According to the CDC, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, causing nearly half a million deaths.
And the health agency said smoking causes about 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths.
For the study, researchers analyzed data from South Korea’s national health screening program from 2012-2014 and 2018.
The maximum level of nicotine allowed in a vaporizer is set at 20 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter of liquid (two percent) in Europe, the United Kingdom and Canada. These devices last between 550 and 600 inhalations. In the US, it’s fairly easy to find a device or pod that contains up to 5 percent nicotine.
Participants were divided into six groups based on their smoking history and whether they used e-cigarettes.
Researchers found that 53,350 people had developed lung cancer and 6,350 died from the disease.
Former cigarette smokers who had quit smoking five or more years earlier and turned to vaping were twice as likely to experience a lung cancer-related death as former smokers who did not vape.
Additionally, former smokers who had quit smoking less than five years earlier and started vaping had a 23 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer and a 71 percent higher risk of lung cancer-related death.
Based on their findings, the authors concluded: “Clinicians should highlight the potential harmful effects of alternative e-cigarette use when integrating smoking cessation interventions to reduce the risk of lung cancer.”
He study was presented at the 2024 International Conference of the American Thoracic Society and an abstract was published in the American Journal and Critical Care Medicine.