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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : June 24, 2019 3:39 PM IST
E-cigarettes come with a lot of negative health impacts. © Shutterstock
According to WHO, more than 10 million die each year due to tobacco use in India and there are about 120 million smokers in the country. These figures reflect the strong necessity of curbing smoking in our country. So, in 2007, e-cigarettes were introduced in India as a healthier alternative to tobacco. Since their introduction, India has witnessed widespread success in smoking cessation among non-smokers, females and youth. According to some estimate, their sales have increased by 14-fold since 2008. Recent PTI reports suggest that about 3 per cent of adults in India are presently aware of e-cigarettes and an estimated 0.02 per cent of the population use it.
Several studies including World Health Organization reports warn against the usage of e-cigarettes, which fall in the category of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). Other products included in this category are personal vaporizers, vape pens, e-cigars, e-hookah, vaping devices. According to the WHO, ENDS heat a solution to create a type of aerosol. It contains nicotine and is potentially harmful to our health in more ways than one. So, 12 states in India have recently banned ENDS. Going tough on e-cigarettes, the health ministry has proposed to classify such alternative smoking devices as 'drugs, under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, in a bid to ban their manufacture, sale, distribution and import. The Indian Council of Medical Research, on the other hand, has recommended a 'complete, ban on e-cigarettes, saying their use can initiate nicotine addiction among non-smokers.
Experts and researchers are, however, divided on the decision of banning e-cigarettes and their health impacts. A cross-section of medical professionals is of the opinion that regulation, not ban is required in the sector of vaping. According to a PTI report, Bharat Gopal, a Delhi-based pulmonologist at the National Chest Centre, said in the recently held Global Forum on Nicotine, Warsaw, "There is a need to give an opportunity to doctors to be able to give option of harm reduction products to its patients who are heavy smokers." Professor R.N. Sharan of North-Eastern Hill University, who was part of the team that conducted the first Indian study by experts on the health and safety implications of ENDS, told PTI, "But what is the point of allowing a more dangerous product (cigarettes) and banning less dangerous products (e-cigarettes)."
As already mentioned, e-cigarettes have been found to be harmful to human health in multiple ways. Starting from increasing your risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases to affecting foetal development, the nicotine used in e-cigarettes can have numerous negative impacts on our health. Here are the top five reasons to quit smoking e cigarettes.
The use of e-cigarette during pregnancy has increased over the years as it has been touted as a safer alternative to cigarettes during this phase of a woman's life. However, it is not as safe as it is claimed to be, finds research.This is because this e-product contains nicotine, that you find in normal cigarettes. Smoking e-cigarettes can negatively impact your foetus' brain and lung development, finds a 2018 study published in the journal Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey. Low birth weight and sudden infant death syndrome of the newborn are the other risk factors that increase if an expecting mom smokes e-cigarettes.
Electronic cigarettes, popularly known as e-cigarettes, may contain microbial toxins associated with myriad health problems, including asthma, reduced lung function and inflammation, warns a new study.
For the study, the researchers from Harvard University examined 75 popular e-cigarette products cartridges (single use) and e-liquids (refillable material) sold in the US.
The results, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, showed that 27 per cent of these products contained traces of endotoxin, a microbial agent found on Gram-negative bacteria, and 81 per cent contained traces of glucan, which is found in the cell walls of most fungi.
"Airborne Gram-negative bacterial endotoxin and fungal-derived glucans have been shown to cause acute and chronic respiratory effects in occupational and environmental settings," said senior study author David Christiani, Professor at Harvard University.
"Finding these toxins in e-cigarette products adds to the growing concerns about the potential for adverse respiratory effects in users," Christiani added.
The findings showed that 17 of 75 products (23 per cent) contained detectable concentrations of endotoxin and that 61 of 75 products (81 per cent) contained detectable concentrations of glucan.
The study also found that endotoxin concentrations were higher in fruit-flavoured products, indicating that raw materials used in the production of flavours might be a source of microbial contamination.
The researchers noted that the contamination of the products could have occurred at any point during the production of the ingredients or of the finished e-cigarette product.
"In addition to inhaling harmful chemicals, e-cig users could also be exposed to biological contaminants like endotoxin and glucan," said lead author of the study Mi-Sun Lee.
E-cigarette vaping with nicotine not only hampers mucus clearance from the airways, but also increase the risk of chronic bronchitis, warn researchers.
A single session of vaping can deliver more nicotine in the airways than smoking one cigarette, warned researchers in a study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
"The question was whether vape containing nicotine had negative effects on the ability to clear secretions from the airways similar to tobacco smoke," said Matthias Salathe, senior author of the study and Professor at the University of Kansas.
The study's findings showed that vaping with nicotine impaired ciliary beat frequency, dehydrates airway fluid and made mucus more viscous or sticky.
These changes make it more difficult for the bronchi, the main passageways to the lung, to defend themselves from infection and injury.
"Vaping with nicotine is not harmless as commonly assumed by those who start vaping. At the very least, it increases the risk of chronic bronchitis," Salathe said.
The researchers observed that exposing human airway cells to e-cigarette vapour containing nicotine resulted in a decreased ability to move mucus or phlegm across the surface. This phenomenon is called "mucociliary dysfunction."
Mucociliary dysfunction is a feature of many lung diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis.
For the study, the researchers tested the effects of nicotine-containing e-cigarette vapours on airway mucociliary function in differentiated human bronchial epithelial cells (HBECs) and sheep, whose airways mimic those of humans when exposed to e-cigarette vapour.
The researchers concluded that nicotine produced these negative effects by stimulating the ion channel transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1). Blocking TRPA1 reduced the effects of nicotine on clearance in both human cells in culture and in the sheep.
The flavours used in electronic cigarettes (e-cigarette), especially cinnamon and menthol, can increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) when inhaled, says a study.
The research team investigated the effect of the e-liquids on endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels.
The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found that endothelial cells exposed to the e-liquids or to blood collected from e-cigarette users shortly after vaping, exhibit significantly increased levels of molecules implicated in DNA damage and cell death.
The severity of the damage, aspects of which occur even in the absence of nicotine, varies among popular flavours, said the researchers, adding that cinnamon and menthol were found to be particularly harmful.
"This study clearly shows that e-cigarettes are not a safe alternative to traditional cigarettes," said Joseph Wu, Professor at Stanford University.
For the study, the researchers investigated the effect of six different popular e-liquid flavours fruit, tobacco, sweet tobacco with caramel and vanilla, sweet butterscotch, cinnamon and menthol with varied nicotine levels on endothelial cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells.
"When we exposed the cells to six different flavours of e-liquid with varying levels of nicotine, we saw significant damage. The cells were less viable in culture, and they began to exhibit multiple symptoms of dysfunction," Wu said.
The researchers found that while several of the liquids were moderately toxic to the endothelial cells, the cinnamon- and menthol-flavoured e-liquids significantly decreased the viability of the cells in culture even in the absence of nicotine.
"It's important for e-cigarette users to realise that these chemicals are circulating within their bodies and affecting their vascular health," Wu said.
Believing that exposure to e-cigarette vape is safe for children, parents are increasingly vaping both at home and in car, finds a study. The study showed only 38 per cent of parents who smoked cigarettes and 22 per cent dual users were found to strictly restrict cigarette use in both home and car.
On the other hand, 56 per cent of both e-cigarette users and dual users reported using e-cigarettes in their cars with children around. The research included 750 parents. "The finding that a large majority of parents are vaping e-cigarettes inside homes and cars is an alarming trend," said lead author Jeremy Drehmer at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the US.
"Our results suggest parents perceive it's safe to use electronic cigarettes and are not taking the same precautions they do to protect their children from exposure to traditional cigarettes," Drehmer said.
Although e-cigarettes, found comparatively safer than cigarettes in terms of harmful substances released, may prove no less harmful when used in the presence of children or inside homes and cars.
Carcinogenetic volatile organic compounds have been detected in the urine of e-cigarette users, and e-cigarettes leave deposits of nicotine on surfaces when used inside, according to the paper published in the Pediatrics journal.
Drehmer said parents have been misled by the marketing of vaping products to believe that the aerosol produced by them is harmless to children.
The researchers said tobacco majors market e-cigarettes as healthy products without warning about the harms to infants and children from nicotine and ultra-fine toxic particles that spread into the air and coats surfaces.
"Paediatric healthcare providers need to help set the record straight and inform parents that e-cigarette vapour is not safe for children," Drehmer suggested.
(With inputs from PTI and IANS)
