Is Vaping Bad For You? Is It Safer Than Smoking? (podcast)

The e-cigarette contains many different compounds, including marijuana derivatives, such as THC and CBD, as well as nicotine, and a whole host of different flavorings that are available now and marketed toward children.

CBD is a chemical that’s found in the marijuana plant that does not give the person that’s using CBD the typical high from THC. CBD oil can be used topically and also ingested to help with pain and to help with sleep and induce relaxation.

Absolutely you can vape without having THC [the part that gets you high], or CBD, or nicotine or flavoring.

With the bad press that smoking gets in general, vaping was initially thought to be a possible way for people to stop smoking. But it has turned into somewhat of a fad, a novelty for our youth, adolescents and high schoolers. In fact, the average e-cigarette user is much younger than that of smokers.

There’s a novelty component to it. The flavorings unfortunately attract a much younger user population. Flavorings for instance are raspberry, candy flavors, even menthol flavors, things that are the same flavorings found in candy in general.

Initially that was the thought and the hope. But technically, the FDA has never approved vaping or e-cigarettes as a modality to quit smoking. The literature actually suggests there’s a lot of conflicting results. Some results show that vaping did help people quit smoking, but a year later they were then addicted to the e-cigarettes. Other reports show that there’s no difference in using e-cigarettes to quit smoking compared to nicotine containing products and in terms of efficacy in quitting smoking.

Epidemiological studies show it’s about 50 percent or a pretty even split among men and women using e-cigarettes, perhaps slightly increased among male users.

As far as age is concerned, it’s a much younger population of users, Forty percent of e-cigarette users are 18 to 24-year-olds.

No, absolutely not. The reason is that vaping products contain so many different additives. In the beginning of the advent of the e-cigarette, there were technically less chemicals found in the e-cigarette smoke that users would be inhaling compared to smokers. And so there was a thought that because of that, e-cigarette use was less dangerous than smoking. However, we found out later that e-cigarette use can also alter the immune system of the lung in dangerous ways. With the advent of e-cigarette or vaping-product-associated lung injuries across the United States, vaping is absolutely not safer than smoking.

Vitamin E acetate could be one of the culprit ingredients that is found in the lung lavage samples of patients who have this lung injury that has been thought to be vaping induced. What vitamin E acetate does is it dilutes the e-liquid. It is often found with the THC. Many of the vaping-induced lung injury patients mentioned use of THC containing e-cigarettes vaping products. In many of those patients, the vitamin E acetate was found in their lungs. There are quantities of vitamin E that can be found in any e-cigarettes containing devices.

Symptoms can include coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain. In some patients, we’ve also seen people coughing up blood.

Vitamin E acetate has been found more in the black market e-cartridges, and less so in the e-vaping products that are regulated. But trace amounts of vitamin E acetate have still been found in the more regulated e-cigarettes products too.

We don’t really know yet whether vaping products are less risky without vitamin E acetate. There are different additives in there that are known irritants to the lung. I think we’re just beginning the story. A lot remains to be seen with further research on other chemicals that could be associated with this type of lung injury.

The main reason for this is because the lining of the lung is very different than the lining of our gut and also our skin barrier. The lining of our lung sees the vitamin E acetate as honey, coating the airways and the air sacs. You can imagine if we took honey and put it in someone’s lungs. That wouldn’t be an ideal situation for breathing.

It’s partially reversible. Steroids are the mainstay of treatment. But we don’t even know what vitamin E acetate does to the lungs. This has never come up before. What we think it might do is cause a severe and rapid airway obstruction. It can also induce lung injury from damaging the air sacs within the lungs themselves.

I’ve treated people who have almost died from this type of lung injury. It’s been a huge wake up call for them and currently they’re doing much better. But it takes a lot of time and completely quitting e-cigarettes and vaping all together.

One of my patients actually needed to have a breathing tube stuck down his throat and be connected to life support to help him breathe. Other cases that I’ve seen, patients were able to take steroids orally and they got better.

Unfortunately in a lot of the black markets products, there have been traces of pesticides that have been found and when this type of pesticide is heated, it can form hydrogen cyanide.

Unfortunatelybecause what goes into these liquids is so unregulated, we can’t control it. Even the usual substances of propylene glycol and glycerin, which are considered to be relatively benign, are also known lung irritants.

I would say to please consider some of the more recommended ways of smoke cessation, such as nicotine replacement products, which include lozenges that are hard sucker candies that we can put in our mouth and suck on. We can also use nicotine gum, as well as nicotine patches and different pills that can also decrease our cravings for nicotine from smoking. 

No.The bottom line is just absolutely no. If someone still chooses to continue to vape and to use e-cigarettes products, I highly recommend that the source be a reliable one, not from the black market, not homemade and not made by friends and certainly not illegally purchased.

If you’re interested in quitting smoking, please speak to your physician about all the well-documented ways that are safe to quit smoking, including nicotine replacement products. The bottom line is it’s not worth your lung health or your life to vape, or even try e-cigarettes. The only things you need to inhale are clean air and prescribed inhalers should you need them. That’s it, very simple recommendation.