Walk down the streets of a busy city and you’re unlikely to find much smoke in the air. Why? Most smokers are now ditching their flaming death sticks for a more conventional and “healthier” option: e-cigarettes. According to Time, people who vape account for 10% of U.S. adults and 15% of those under 40. However, they go on to point out that most people who vape still use tobacco products. The debate continues whether or not e-cigarettes are better for you than traditional cigarettes. Most agree that inhaling water vapor has less damaging effects than inhaling smoke. E-cigarettes are not without their faults, though
Recently, chemicals found in the flavoring of e-cigarettes have been linked to the incurable disease known as ‘popcorn lung.’ The disease got its name after popcorn factory workers inhaled the chemicals and later experienced respiratory problems. Diacetyl, acetoin, and 2,3 pentanedione are three chemicals known to contribute to the disease. These chemicals are found in fruit flavorings, butter-flavored popcorn, candies, and now e-cigarettes. Popcorn lung is caused when these types of chemicals are inhaled into the lungs causing damage to the tiny air sacs. The scarring can lead to excessive coughing, shortness of breath, and similar symptoms you find in COPD.
David Christiani, a co-author of the study who discovered the link, told AOL News about the dangers e-cigarettes now pose:
Since most of the health concerns about e-cigarettes have focused on nicotine, there is still much we do not know about e-cigarettes. In addition to containing varying levels of the addictive substance nicotine, they also contain other cancer-causing chemicals, such as formaldehyde, and as our study shows, flavoring chemicals that can cause lung damage.
The FDA has yet to corroborate that e-cigarettes are in any way healthier than regular smokes. Most of the damning research has pointed to the flavorings as the culprit in health problems. Most people carry with them the conception that nicotine is an evil carcinogen. In fact, nicotine alone is not a harmful substance. Forbes magazine reports:
It isn’t the stuff that can cause serious illness and death from cancer, lung, and heart disease. Those culprits are the tar and toxic gases that are released from burning tobacco when you smoke. Nicotine is a chemical that is dangerous not because it causes cancer but because it can addict you to cigarettes. As Michael Russell, the father of tobacco harm reduction theory and the developer of nicotine gum, put it in 1976: “People smoke for nicotine but they die from the tar.”