Author: James Anderson

Health Effects of Vaping Smoking and Tobacco Use

You may have heard the benefits of vaping are that it’s safe or that it helps you quit smoking. Some people vape because they think it’ll help them quit smoking if they’ve already tried other methods and haven’t been able to quit. Unfortunately, you may end up addicted to vaping instead, so the benefits of vaping for smoking cessation may not be as good as they seem. There’s no benefit to vaping if you don’t already smoke. “Of my pediatric patients who have told me that they vape, none of them have reported doing so in order to quit smoking cigarettes,” she explains. “As pediatric care teams, we’re worried about nicotine dependence, which may lead to an increased risk of using other nicotine products, like cigarettes, in the future.”

Since then, EVALI cases have been declining, but people who vape can still get EVALI. It’s important to use your vape as much as you need to help you stop smoking and stay quit. It is normal to vape more frequently than you used to smoke, and this is not more harmful. Some people find vaping helps them because the hand-to-mouth action is like smoking, plus you get similar sensations, like “throat hit”.

An electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) is a device that heats up the liquid nicotine and flavoring for you to breathe in. There are many varieties of e-cigarettes that go by different names, including vapes, vape pens or sticks, e-hookahs, hookah sticks, mods and personal vaporizers (PVs). They can also be collectively called electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). E-cigarette aerosol generally contains fewer harmful chemicals than the deadly mix of 7,000 chemicals in smoke from cigarettes.71314 However, this does not make e-cigarettes safe.

Behaviors and Risks

This can make them think they need nicotine just to feel okay. Vaping works by heating liquid in a small device so you can breathe it into your lungs. The e-cigarette, vape pen or other vaping device heats the liquid in the device to create an aerosol.

Nicotine

Anyone can report health or safety issues with tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, through the FDA Safety Reporting Portal. According to Blaha, there are three reasons e-cigarettes may be particularly enticing to young people. First, many teens believe vaping is less harmful than smoking. Second, e-cigarettes have a lower per-use cost than traditional cigarettes.

It raises your blood pressure and spikes your adrenaline, which increases your heart rate and the likelihood of having a heart attack. If you have thought about trying to kick a smoking habit, you’re not alone. Quitting smoking is one of the best things you can do for your health — smoking harms nearly every organ in your body, including your heart. Nearly one-third of deaths from heart disease are the result of smoking and secondhand smoke.

Want to quit smoking?

Your trusted resource for health and wellness information and the latest medical advances to help you and your family live better. Commercial tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States. Nicotine poses unique dangers to youth because their brains are still developing. Research from the CDC shows that vaping among youth has declined somewhat since 2020. Kids being stuck at home under their parents’ supervision during the COVID-19 pandemic could contribute to that trend. Respiratory viruses continue to circulate in Maryland, so masking remains strongly recommended when you visit Johns Hopkins Medicine clinical locations in Maryland.

Nicotine addiction and withdrawal

1. E-cigarettes have been the most common tobacco product among youth since 2014.
2. Teens may not realize how much nicotine they are exposed to if they vape.
3. She says that while some of her patients vape every day, others only vape when they are with their friends at school or on the bus.
4. Diacetyl is contained in cigarette smoke, but it is banned as an ingredient in UK-regulated nicotine vapes and e-liquids.

E-cigarettes have been the most common tobacco product among youth since 2014. Studies suggest nicotine vaping may be less harmful than traditional cigarettes when people who regularly smoke switch to them as a complete replacement. Vaping is when you use a handheld electronic device to breathe a mist (“vapor”) into your lungs. Vaping can cause breathing problems, organ damage, addiction and other conditions. The same CDC report says disposable e-cigarette use has increased 1,000% among high school students and 400% among middle school students since 2019. Among youth, e-cigarettes, especially the disposable kind, are more popular than any traditional tobacco product.

Research suggests vaping is bad for your heart and lungs.

This is especially true for vaping products containing THC,” explains Blaha. Vaping is now more popular among teens than smoking traditional cigarettes. One in four high school seniors say they vaped nicotine in the past month.

What are the side effects of vaping?

Scientists have even detected nicotine in some e-cigarettes that claim to be nicotine-free. The teen brain is especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of nicotine because it’s still developing in important ways. Using nicotine as a teenager can lead to addiction, cause learning and memory problems, and increase the risk of addiction to other drugs.

Nicotine itself does not cause cancer, lung disease, heart disease or stroke and has been used safely for many years in medicines to help people stop smoking. The flavor chemicals (such as fruit) added to the liquid of many devices can be safe to eat, but may be dangerous to inhale. When you eat flavoring chemicals, your liver filters the blood coming from your digestive tract before it travels to the rest of the body. But when you inhale them, the chemicals go directly into your lungs, then head straight into your bloodstream without being filtered. While they may look different, most vaping devices work in a similar way.

This heats the liquid in a cartridge, turning it into vapors that are inhaled. In a recent study, about 18% of people who switched to vaping had been able to quit smoking. That’s about twice as many people as those who used other methods to quit smoking. However, about 80% of people who quit smoking were still vaping.