E-cigarettes could be just as bad for your health as traditional tobacco cigarettes according to a new study.
According to the Guardian, research published in the Journal of Oral Oncology claims to have demonstrated that ‘vaping’ may damage DNA or even kill human cells. The study comes after public health officials in Europe, the US and the UK have all publicly backed the use of e-cigarettes to help people quit smoking.
The authors admit their results are inconclusive but with an estimated 2.6 million Britons now vaping, e-cigarettes will be licensed and regulated in 2016 as ‘stop smoking’ aids.
The researchers concluded: “Our study strongly suggests that electronic cigarettes are not as safe as their marketing makes them appear to the public.” However, very few public health chiefs are likely to agree after a study published earlier this year concluded that the vapour had ‘no cytotoxic impact’ on human airway tissue, although you should bear in mind it was conducted by British American Tobacco scientists.
A separate risk assessment carried out by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health concluded that as e-cigarettes deliver the same amount of nicotine as cigarettes, the same harmful effects could be expected.
Kevin Fenton, national director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, defended e-cigarettes as being less harmful telling the Guardian:
Our recent world-leading review found that e-cigarettes carry a fraction of the risk of smoking – the harmful chemicals found in tobacco smoke, including carcinogens, are either absent in e-cigarette vapour or are at significantly lower levels than in tobacco smoke. The best thing a smoker can do is quit completely, now and forever, and we need to provide smokers with accurate, balanced information on different quitting methods.
Sometimes you just don’t know who to believe.
Image credit: Vaping360.com.
