We know how you feel. You pick up a newspaper, turn on the TV, check into Facebook…you know what’s lurking just ahead. Stories designed to scare everyone about vaping. Every day it’s something new. A couple weeks ago, we looked at the most common lies and exaggerations about electronic cigarettes that the news media spread. Many things what you have known about vaping are not really true so today, we are going to give you detailed information to recognize.

Secondhand vapor is not dangerous

Drexel University’s Igor Burstyn, a toxicology expert, concluded that there is no risk to bystanders breathing vapor. This study was crowd-funded by vapers through CASAA. “Exposures of bystanders are likely to be orders of magnitude less, and thus pose no apparent concern,” wrote Burstyn. Peering through the mist: systematic review of what the chemistry of contaminants in electronic cigarettes tells us about health risks – Igor Burstyn

Vaping can improve lung function for smokers

There are several studies that find no harmful effects of vaping on the lungs. One of the most impressive is Dr. Polosa’s discovery that in asthmatic smokers, switching to vaping — or even just using vaping to reduce smoking — improved lung function. “The e-cig may help smokers with asthma to reduce their cigarette consumption or remain abstinent and hence reduce the burden of smoking-related asthma symptoms,” wrote Polosa. “The positive findings observed with e-cigs allows us to advance the hypothesis that these products may be valuable for smoking cessation and/or tobacco harm reduction also in asthma patients who smoke.”

Nicotine alone is not powerfully addictive

Nicotine isn’t close in addictiveness to heroin — or cocaine or any of the other drugs non-experts throw around to scare readers. Lots of studies question common beliefs about nicotine’s addictiveness. French expert Dr. Etter found vaping far less addictive than smoking. “Some e-cigarette users were dependent on nicotine-containing e-cigarettes, but these products were less addictive than tobacco cigarettes,” Etter and Eissenberg said. “E-cigarettes may be as or less addictive than nicotine gums, which themselves are not very addictive.”

E-cigarettes are not full of formaldehyde

After the infamous letter to the New England Journal of Medicine claiming high formaldehyde in vapor, Dr. Farsalinos did experiments to show that formaldehyde is only produced when an atomizer is overheated and the user gets a horrible dry hit. “Electronic cigarettes produce high levels of aldehyde only in dry puff conditions, in which the liquid overheats, causing a strong unpleasant taste that e-cigarette users detect and avoid,” explained the scientists.. “Under normal vaping conditions aldehyde emissions are minimal, even in new-generation high-power e-cigarettes.”

Sweet vape flavors are not aimed at children

Every vaper has heard the maddening claim that candy and fruit flavors are aimed at children. We know that adult vapers use flavors to get away from the experience of burning tobacco. We know it because we’ve all experienced it! “Among vapor store customers in the United States who use electronic nicotine delivery devices to stop smoking, vaping longer, using newer-generation devices and using non-tobacco and non-menthol flavored e-liquid appear to be associated with higher rates of smoking cessation,” wrote the authors.

Vaping is substantially lower in toxins than smoking

Hey, there’s a study every week that shows something in vapor. But many studies — including this one from Dr. Goniewicz and others — have proven that the toxicants are at far, far lower levels than those found in smoke.“After switching from tobacco to e-cigarettes, nicotine exposure remains unchanged, while exposure to selected carcinogens and toxicants is substantially reduced,” the authors wrote.

Vaping can help people quit smoking

There have been junk studies claiming that vaping actually reduces the number of smokers who quit. Wrong, says this study from a group of top-notch British cessation experts. They also show that vapers are more likely than those who use other methods to not relapse.“Among smokers who have attempted to stop without professional support, those who use e-cigarettes are more likely to report continued abstinence than those who used a licensed NRT product bought over-the-counter or no aid to cessation,” write the authors.

Vaping is not a gateway to smoking

The gateway claim is the ugliest claim about vaping, and every study that purports to show a gateway turns out to have major faults in methodology or a tiny sample size, as Clive Bates explained in his great blog about gateway claims. These highly respected tobacco researchers found no evidence of a gateway, and even implore their colleagues to make room for vaping as a tool to prevent smoking.

“While research exists to support either side of the argument, we conclude, currently, that youth use of e-cigarettes is unlikely to increase the ranks of future cigarette smokers,” said Kozlowski and Warner. “Is it possible we could have our cake and eat it too? Perhaps, especially if sensible comprehensive harm reduction policies can earn a place in modern tobacco control efforts.”

Vaping is NOT as bad as smoking

According to this systematic literature review — a broad look at a large group of existing studies — smokers would benefit from switching to vaping. Farsalinos and Polosa concluded, “Currently available evidence indicates that electronic cigarettes are by far a less harmful alternative to smoking and significant health benefits are expected in smokers who switch from tobacco to electronic cigarettes.”

tags:Electronic Cigarettes,ecigs