Video: Are E-Cigarettes A Healthy Alternative To Cigarettes?

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Columbus, Miss. (WCBI) — A recent Harvard study of 51 e-cigarette flavoring found that 39 contained the chemical called diacetyl, which is associated with an incurable lung disease known as bronchiolitis obliterans, or “popcorn lung”.

The disease’s nickname was coined from being identified in workers who inhaled artificial butter flavoring, mainly found on popcorn.

The study raised the question as to whether e-cigarettes are truly as safer alternative to cigarettes.

“I tried using e-cigarettes and it was like magic…I didn’t intend to quit but it got me off cigarettes, which I tried to do many times before…”, said e-cigarette user Alex Nettles.

Nettles had smoked a pack a day for 11 years.

He has now been using e-cigarettes for over two years, and hasn’t touch a cigarette since.

“Cigarettes just made me feel awful…”, said Nettles, “…I can run with my dogs if I want too, I can skateboard again without losing breath after five minutes.”

Nettles said he is aware of the studies that say e-cigarettes are unhealthy, but he also said “it’s still so much safer than cigarettes and I don’t just feel horrible all the time…”

With e-cigarettes, Nettles said he can control the amount of nicotine he inhales.

He said he started using 36 mg/mL, now he is down to inhaling three mg/mL.

Although vaping helped Nettles overcome his addiction to smoking cigarettes, health researchers are still wary about the product’s safety.

Dr. Robert McMillen, an associate professor at Mississippi State University and director of the National Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control.

“We simply don’t have the science yet to document the potential harms and maybe potential benefits are…”, said McMillen, “…we simply don’t know the answers to these questions.”

“Meanwhile, they’re being advertised very aggressively, they have attractive flavors, and their market share is expanding and yet, we still don’t know much about them…”

McMillen said e-cigarettes “exploded” in the U.S. in terms of popularity between 2012 and 2014.

He said a cause for concern with e-cigarette products is the lack of federal regulation, citing quality control as a main issue.

McMillen, who researches tobacco use at a local, state, and national level, says 10% of high school students use e-cigarettes.

He also said half of high school students in Mississippi who use e-cigarettes never smoked prior, and that they refuse to smoke cigarettes.

“You look at somebody who is a confirmed, established cigarette smoker, if they could quit doing that and use something less harmful, that’s probably not a bad thing”, said McMillen, “…but when you take a non-tobacco user and they’re attracted to the vaping culture or the aerosol that you can breath and make clouds with, and the flavors, and they start using an inhaled nicotine product, that from a public health prospective is a bad thing.”

McMillen said the F.D.A. is doing a study of young adults and adolescence over a period of time to know what motivates them to use e-cigarettes.

McMillen also warned that while the ingredients in e-cigarettes are considered safe for human consumption, they are meant to be eaten and not inhaled.

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