Vaping News 30th August 2016
The use of Electronic cigarettes may be reducing lung infections in ex-smokers
People who have been smokers but turned to vaping have a 66% reduction in lung related infections a new study claims.
Queen Mary university of London hospital have just carried out an on line study of 941 people who have made the switch to Vaping from smoking tobacco products and have been using an electronic cigarette for at least 2 months.
Their new study published by the Journal of Addiction Research and Therapy suggests that 66% or two thirds of the people in the study have reported suffering from fewer respiratory illnesses, 29% reported no change and 5% thought that their respiratory problems had got worse while using an electronic cigarette device.
The researchers who carried out this study are not surprised by the results. It is well known that smoking increases many forms of respiratory illnesses including lung cancer due to the many thousands of chemicals inhaled when a smoker takes a puff. Compare this to Vaping where these chemicals do not exist and where only 4 main products are used to make up E liquid.
Vaping compared to smoking does not fill the lungs with tar which is one of the main health benefits of vaping an e cig over smoking a cigarette. If the lungs don’t get congested with tar build up, which is what smoker’s inhale then they are bound to work more efficiently.
In fact, they have suggested that one of the components in e liquid, propylene glycol may actually provide some antimicrobial protection when being vaped but they will need to carry out further tests to confirm this fact.
Propylene glycol is an ingredient found in Hospital air conditioning systems and a clinical trial carried out by Dr Murray Laugeson of Health New Zealand suggest that far from causing long term health problems it may actually be helping to keep vapers healthy as it could help to kill various air borne viruses that we breath in on a daily basis.
Researchers also found that one part of propylene glycol added into 2,000,000 parts air would within a few seconds kill air borne viruses such as streptococci, pneumococci and other bacteria.
They are pushing to carry out further tests on Propylene glycol to confirm or deny these facts which if proven to be true could be used very successfully as a virus prevention tool.
Studies on vapers who have been using electronic cigarettes for over a year have reported no major adverse respiratory effects but as vaping is a relatively new invention then studies of vapers over the long term will have to wait until they have been around long enough for further tests to be carried out. We may have to wait for up to 30 years before the real long term benefits or side effects of continued vaping is truly understood.