09 Jan Vaping: Why It Is So Harmful
You can’t drive down many major streets these days without seeing an abundance of shops in strip malls which are advertising vaping accessories for sale. Though no one will argue that any type of smoking is injurious to your health and longevity, vaping has recently grabbed the headlines because of the number of deaths which can be immediately attributed to it.
Headlines of the positive relationship between vaping and death have been prevalent in the news this year. As of December 2019, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed 54 deaths in patients associated with e-cigarette, or vaping product use. Though all of the lives lost through vaping is tragic, most have been those in their teens and early twenties.
What are the dangers?
Many people believe that vaping is less addictive than smoking because of the lower levels of nicotine. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, many e-cigarette users get even higher levels of nicotine than cigarettes because of the extra cartridges they can buy that dramatically increase the amount of nicotine that makes its way into their bloodstream. A user can also increase the voltage level of an e-cigarette, increasing the amount of nicotine ingested.
Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H., director of clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease has conducted extensive research on vaping. He states, “People need to understand that e-cigarettes are potentially dangerous to your health. Emerging data suggests links to chronic lung disease and asthma.” He adds, “You’re exposing yourself to all kinds of chemicals that we don’t yet understand and that are probably not safe.”
Who Can You Trust?
Vaping has also been portrayed as a method to help people quit smoking traditional cigarettes. This has also been proven to be untrue. E-cigarettes have received no endorsement from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a smoking cessation tool. In fact, new studies are showing that smokers taking up vaping to quit smoking are ending up smoking more because they end up smoking both cigarettes and e-cigarettes.
HeartShare is committed to helping you not only save other people’s lives through life-saving training techniques, such as CPR, but we also care about you and your family’s well-being. If you’re a smoker, quit today. If you have children, talk to them about the very real dangers of vaping and get them to commit to avoiding it at all costs. Your good example, and heart-felt communication with your kids, may very well be a life-saver.
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