Electronic cigarettes were invented as a less harmful alternative to smoking. And this really makes sense – instead of inhaling carcinogenic smoke and tar from regular cigarettes, their electronic counterparts are inhaling vapor with nicotine. In practice, however, things are different and today only the lazy have not heard about the dangers of electronic cigarettes. So, recently we told the shocking story of a British girl who suffered from vaping, as well as many cases of dangerous lung diseases in e-cigarette lovers. But what happens if you smoke cigarettes and their electronic counterparts at the same time? Scientists have long suspected that this is not a very good idea and were right – the results of a new study have shown that the combination of vaping and tobacco leads to a higher risk of developing lung cancer. We tell you the details!
Combining vapes and regular cigarettes can increase the risk of lung cancer, researchers have found. Image: www.punkjuice.com
Are e-cigarettes safe?
With the advent of electronic cigarettes, classic tobacco smoking – inhaling the smoke of smoldering dried or processed tobacco leaves in the form of smoking cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, smoking pipes or hookahs – was replaced by vaping – the use of electronic devices that generate a highly dispersed aerosol. At first, it seemed that vaping had many advantages over regular cigarettes, the harm of which humanity has known for quite a long time, but over time it became impossible to call electronic cigarettes safe.
Well, Dr. Michael Blaha, director of clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, says vaping is unsafe. That's because there's no accurate information about all the chemicals in vapes. A 2021 study from Johns Hopkins University found thousands of chemical ingredients in vaping products, most of which have yet to be identified.
E-cigarettes are unsafe and addictive. Image: penntoday.upenn.edu
Among those that scientists were able to identify were several potentially harmful substances, including caffeine, pesticides, and two flavorings that can cause toxic effects and respiratory irritation. People should understand that e-cigarettes are potentially dangerous to health, the University's website says.
Even more worrying is the impact of e-cigarettes on the heart and lungs – the data available today indicate a link between chronic lung disease and asthma, as well as a link between smoking tobacco and e-cigarettes at the same time and cardiovascular disease.
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What happens if you smoke tobacco and vape at the same time?
As mentioned above, scientists have long suspected that smoking tobacco and e-cigarettes at the same time is harmful to health. These suspicions, unfortunately, were confirmed, as reported by the authors of a study recently published in the Journal of Oncology Research and Therapy. «People who consume nicotine in two different ways are four times more likely to develop lung cancer, than those who just smoke,” the study says.
Note that this is the first study to provide evidence that smoking in combination with vaping increases the risk of cancer compared to smoking either one alone. In the study, the team tracked rates of vaping and regular cigarette smoking among nearly 5,000 U.S. residents diagnosed with lung cancer and compared them with a group of nearly 27,300 healthy people.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, killing 1.8 million people in 2020 alone. Image: imageio.forbes.com
All study participants were from the same geographic area (treated in Columbus, Ohio) and had similar distributions of age, gender, and race. The results of the analysis showed that
vaping combined with cigarette smoking was eight times more common in people with lung cancer compared to the control group. Additionally, the findings showed that the risk of developing lung cancer was four times higher among people who combined vaping and smoking compared to those who only smoked.
Read also: Nicotine-free e-cigarettes are as harmful as regular vapes
The authors of the scientific paper note that previous studies have already linked nicotine contained in e-cigarette vapors to lung cancer in mice: «The amount of smoke the mice were exposed to was the same as that of a person who had been smoking e-cigarettes for three to six years«.
Moreover, it is clear from the scientific literature that, in addition to nicotine, various toxic compounds are present in the aerosol liquid for electronic cigarettes, the researchers add.
People who both smoked and vaped were eight times more likely to develop lung cancer than healthy controls. Image: www.universityofcalifornia.edu
The findings provide the first evidence that smoking and vaping significantly increases the risk of developing lung cancer. Most people know that tobacco smoke contains chemicals that cause cancer, but in general, less is known about the chemicals that are inhaled through vaping, the authors write.
Experts also note that that most people know that tobacco smoke contains chemicals that cause cancer, but much less is known about the chemicals that are inhaled through vaping.
However, many people, including teenagers who are into vaping, may not realize it. At the same time, more research is needed on the health effects of alternative tobacco products to provide a scientific basis for regulating the tobacco industry.
Don't miss: Vaping has been found to be deadly – give up the vaping habit immediately
Does vaping help you quit smoking?
Vaping and e-cigarettes are sometimes touted as a reliable way to quit smoking. But is this really true, since e-cigarettes are also addictive? Research results are mixed, but most people who intend to use e-cigarettes to quit nicotine end up using both traditional and e-cigarettes.
However, a recent study published in JAMA Network Openopens found that more frequent e-cigarette use was associated with higher rates of quitting traditional cigarettes.
Those who smoke daily quit more than twice as often as those who do not smoke daily (12.8% versus 6.1%) and try to do so three times more often. Thus, the number of smoking cessation among e-cigarette users has more than doubled in recent years, the article says.
E-cigarettes can help you quit smoking. Just like doctor-approved drugs. Image: images.ladbible.com
Notably, mint and menthol flavors were associated with higher overall quit rates than tobacco-flavored products – 9.2% versus 4.7%. E-cigarette flavors are controversial, with regulators and public health groups arguing that they increase appeal to young people and promote nicotine addiction.
More on the topic: How to quit smoking: can a brain injury cure addiction?
The study authors also noted the dangers of combining smoking regular and e-cigarettes, while noting that they were unable to assess any link between the nicotine content of e-cigarettes and smoking cessation outcomes. Another potential limitation of the study was that it only included adult participants who reported smoking in the previous 30 days, limiting information on young smokers and former smokers.
As such, frequent e-cigarette use may be more of an indicator of the smoking cessation process than an independent factor associated with smoking cessation, the researchers wrote.