Are e-cigarettes tobacco products?

Nicotine and Tobacco Research: Should e-cigarettes should be classified as tobacco products? In 2014 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US concluded that they are (1), and we regularly receive submissions describing e-cigarettes as tobacco products. However, this judgement is the product of policy developments around the role of the FDA and their ability to provide regulative guidance and authority relating to a range of products. Products that contain nicotine derived from tobacco fall within a court-endorsed legal framework for FDA regulation. To date, Nicotine & Tobacco Research has not had an explicit policy on how e-cigarettes should be described.

Should doctors recommend e-cigarettes to help smokers quit?

BMJ: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence offers guidance for doctors to advise people who are trying to quit smoking - that e-cigarettes are helpful tools when trying to quit. However, emerging evidence suggests that e-cigarettes as actually used, actually depress, not assist cigarette smoking cessation for most users, and are a gateway to youth smoking.

So, should they be recommended? Experts debate the issue in The BMJ today.

Experts Clear the Air on E-Cigarettes

Columbia: As increasing numbers of Americans take up vaping, a public health debate has raged over the relative risks and merits of e-cigarettes. Do they help people quit tobacco or rather serve as a gateway to other addictions, and are there other dangers to using the devices?
Arriving with a “breaking news” alert on the New York Times, a new report by from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine aims to clear the air on e-cigarettes, offering the most comprehensive health assessment of the devices to date.

Study finds one in four high school e-cigarette users have tried “dripping”

NIH: A study of high school students found that one in four teens reported using e-cigarettes for “dripping,” a practice in which users produce and inhale vapors by placing drops of e-liquids directly onto heated atomizer coils. In a survey of 1,080 Connecticut high school students who used e-cigarettes, 26.1 percent of students reported this behavior. The survey found students engaged in dripping to produce thicker clouds of vapor (63.5%), improve flavors (38.7%), and produce a stronger throat hit (27.7%). The research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the FDA Center for Tobacco Products.

E-cigarettes safer than smoking says long-term study

London: Scientists at UCL found that people who swapped smoking regular cigarettes for e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) for at least six months, had much lower levels of toxic and cancer causing substances in their body than people who continued to use conventional cigarettes. The research was funded by Cancer Research UK. For the first time, researchers analysed the saliva and urine of long-term e-cigarette and NRT users, as well as smokers, and compared body-level exposure to key chemicals. Ex-smokers who switched to e-cigarettes or NRT had significantly lower levels of toxic chemicals and carcinogen in their body compared to people who continued to smoke tobacco cigarettes. But, those who used e-cigarettes or NRT while continuing to smoke, did not show the same marked differences, highlighting that a complete switch is needed to reduce exposure to toxins.

E-cigarettes Lead More Kids to Smoke

NIH: Today, thanks to decades of educational efforts about the serious health consequences of inhaled tobacco, fewer young people than ever smoke cigarettes in the United States. So, it’s interesting that a growing of number of middle and high school kids are using e-cigarettes—electronic devices that vaporize flavored liquid that generally contains nicotine. E-cigarettes come with their own health risks, including lung inflammation, asthma, and respiratory infections. But their supporters argue that “vaping,” as it’s often called, might provide an option that would help young people steer clear of traditional cigarettes and the attendant future risks of lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, and other serious health conditions. Now, a new NIH-funded study finds that this is—pardon the pun—mostly a pipe dream.

Patients Should Stop Using E-Cigarettes before Plastic Surgery, Experts Conclude

Wolters: Cigarette smokers are at increased risk of complications after plastic surgery. Could e-cigarette users face a similar risk? Evidence and recommendations related to e-cigarette use by plastic surgery patients are discussed in a special topic paper in the December issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). "Refraining from [e-cigarette] use four weeks before surgery is a prudent course of action, despite the fact that it has yet to be determined if the effects are similar to traditional cigarettes," write ASPS Member Surgeons Dr. Peter Taub of Mount Sinai Medical Center and Dr. Alan Matarasso of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both in New York City.

Study Shows E-cigarettes Cause Damage to Gum Tissue

Rochester: A University of Rochester Medical Center study suggests that electronic cigarettes are as equally damaging to gums and teeth as conventional cigarettes. The study, published in Oncotarget, was led by Irfan Rahman, Ph.D. professor of Environmental Medicine at the UR School of Medicine and Dentistry, and is the first scientific study to address e-cigarettes and their detrimental effect on oral health on cellular and molecular levels. Electronic cigarettes continue to grow in popularity among younger adults and current and former smokers because they are often perceived as a healthier alternative to conventional cigarettes. Previously, scientists thought that the chemicals found in cigarette smoke were the culprits behind adverse health effects, but a growing body of scientific data, including this study, suggests otherwise.

E-cigs could lead to real-cigs

Scimex: In a study appearing in the November 8 issue of JAMA, Adam M. Leventhal, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, and colleagues examined associations of e-cigarette vaping with subsequent smoking frequency and heavy smoking among adolescents. E-cigarette vaping is reported by 37 percent of U.S. 10th-grade adolescents and is associated with subsequent initiation of combustible cigarette smoking. Whether individuals who vape and transition to combustible cigarettes are experimenting or progress to more frequent and heavy smoking is unknown. In addition, because some adolescents use e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid, adolescent smokers who vape could be more likely to reduce their smoking levels over time.

Flavored E-Cigarette Use May Increase Teens' Taste for Smoking

American Academy of Pediatrics: New research shows the use of electronic cigarettes with flavors such as gummy bear and bubble gum among U.S. middle- and high-school students may serve as a gateway for future smoking. The study in the December 2016 Pediatrics, "Flavored Electronic Cigarette Use and Smoking Among Youth" (published online Nov. 7), suggests use of these products increases a young people's intentions to begin smoking and decreases their perception of tobacco's danger. Researchers analyzing 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey data found that among respondents who had never smoked, for example, 58 percent of those who used flavored e-cigarettes said they intended to start smoking.

Two Ongoing Studies Evaluate Health Effects of E-cigarettes

Columbus: Several hundred healthy volunteers who currently use tobacco products and smaller group of non-smokers are needed for two clinical studies underway at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) to evaluate the health effects of electronic cigarettes (known as “e-cigs” or “vaping”) and other tobacco products.

Casual e-smokers should be excluded from studies

Scimex: US scientists say the inclusion of people who just 'experiment' with e-cigarettes, and are unlikely to become habitual users, to public health records could skew future research. They say the results were fortified by the findings that most of the people who had ever used e-cigarettes reported no use in the last 30 days.

Would nicotine e-cigs work as quit aids?

Scimex: New Zealand researchers have found that  smokers using nicotine e-cigarettes (NEC) for the first time rated them 83 per cent as highly as own-brand tobacco for liking and satisfaction and that females tended to rate them more highly than males. The authors say that their findings suggest that e-cigarettes that contain nicotine - currently not available in New Zealand - may be useful for nicotine replacement therapy with female smokers. Smokers' first impressions of NECs were very favourable, and were correlated with readiness to change after a tobacco tax increase. NECs appear to be particularly attractive for female smokers, and their use may help to improve the efficacy of nicotine replacement therapy for women.

Low tar e-cig additives may increase nicotine dependence

Scimex: US Scientists have found that pyrazines can boost the amount of dopamine in the brain when combined with nicotine. Both chemicals are commonly found in low tar and e-cigarettes. Given that dopamine is responsible for feelings of happiness, this study suggests the combination of these two substances could play a role in tobacco dependence, and that action should be taken to regulate pyrazines. Additives in low tar ('light') and e-cigarettes may reinforce nicotine dependence. Pyrazines have sensory and pharmacological effects and should be regulated, say researchers. Pyrazine additives in low tar ('light') and e-cigarettes may be reinforcing the addictive qualities of nicotine, and should be strictly regulated, concludes research published online in the journal Tobacco Control.

Don’t ban e-cigarettes, sell them under tight regulation

TheConversation: Over the past ten years, a substantial minority of cigarette smokers in many countries have turned to electronic (e-) cigarettes in an attempt to quit smoking or as an alternative to smoking some or all of the time. In 2013 around 600,000 Australian smokers had tried e-cigarettes, while there are currently around 2.6 million e-cigarette users in Great Britain. These devices avoid burning tobacco and don’t produce smoke, tar and particulate matter. Instead they use an electronic system to produce a mist containing nicotine and propylene glycol and/or vegetable glycerine that can be inhaled much like tobacco smoke to deliver nicotine to the lungs.

Expert argues against smokescreen on e-cigarette research

Queensland: A leading Australian substance abuse expert is pleading for moderation in policies on e-cigarettes.
The University of Queensland’s Professor Wayne Hall said current law on electronic nicotine delivery systems placed researchers – and people who wanted to use e-cigarettes to quit smoking – in a difficult situation. E-cigarettes containing nicotine cannot legally be sold in Australia.
”We should not have to choose between banning e-cigarettes completely and selling them alongside children’s candy,” Professor Hall said.

E-cigarettes could lead to young people becoming hooked on smoking

Scimex: An Australian scientist argues that e-cigarettes could lead to young people becoming hooked on smoking, even though manufacturers say the small quantities of nicotine found in their products is harmless. E-cigs could reverse Australia's progress in stopping young people smoking, because the wide variety of available flavours is alluring to them, he says. If manufacturers of e-cigarettes are wrong about the harmless nature of the small amounts of nicotine in their products, millions of young people may be susceptible, just as the numbers of young people smoking are falling, says a public health expert published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Youth just as likely to try e-cigarettes as smoking

Waterloo: Young people are just as likely to try electronic cigarettes as smoking, according to a new report at the University of Waterloo. The findings reveal that approximately 20 per cent of youth between the ages of 15 and 19 experiment with vaping, the same number who try cigarettes. “E-cigarettes have become increasingly popular among Canadians,” said David Hammond, lead author on the report and a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at Waterloo. “Now one in five youth will try vaping before graduating high school.”

E-cigarettes won't help you quit

British Heart Foundation: A recent study found that daily e-cigarette use was associated with increased attempts to quit smoking but did not increase the number of successful quitters. “This study showed that e-cigarettes did not actually increase the number of successful quitters after one year but may potentially help users to reduce smoking and make more attempts to quit.The study also found that smokers who used tanks, that can be refilled, were more likely to quit smoking than non e-cigarette users.

Many teens try e-cigs , but few become regular users

BMJ: Many teens try e-cigs , but few become regular users, and most of those who do so smoke conventional cigarettes E-cigarettes are popular with teens, including those who have never smoked, but few of those who try them become regular  users, while most of those who do so are also smokers, finds  research published in the online journal  BMJ Open. The researchers base their findings on the results of two nationally representative surveys of primary and secondary  schoolchildren from more than 150 schools in Wales carried out in 2013 and 2014.