For the many people who use the wide variety of products that fall under the term “E-cigarettes”, there is bad news. A recent study conducted by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that “vaping” may cause harmful metals such as lead and nickel into the lungs.
This may come as a major shock to the multitudes of people who use E-cigarettes as the primary appeal as opposed to the use of tobacco cigarettes has always been the reduced health risk. There are already a wide array of articles comparing the two methods of inhaling nicotine into the body, so this article will focus mainly on the newer research done on the hazards of vaping and leave the implications to others.
In general, something of a general consensus is that vaping as an alternative to smoking simply has not been around long enough for the same long-term studies commonly done with tobacco cigarettes to be possible. New research, such as these findings, will, therefore, continue to be valuable in comparing the two.
First off, it must be said that there are few, be they scientists or health professionals or even an astute user of these products, that would be willing to say that there are absolutely no health concerns for vaping whatsoever. On the very basic level, a thick vapor is still being pulled through the lungs and in doing so is almost certainly leaving residue behind after being exhaled. What is commonly understood to be true is that neither the vapor itself or the residue that is left behind have been shown to contain any known carcinogens. That is to say, there is no evidence that vaping leads to cancer in those who do it. That much is still true as of now.
The study conducted by John Hopkins School of Public Health brought up a different but equally important concern: poisoning. Specifically, scientists found that the heating coils used to produce the vapor found in E-cigarettes often releases lead as well as other harmful metals as they are used. While they were unable to find a definitive source of said metals in the coils themselves, a strong correlation was found between the frequency in which coils were changed and the metal content found in the vapor produced.
It would not be terribly difficult for someone to decry these findings as inconclusive, but the findings have been reported all the same.
The same tests also revealed that small amounts of the poison arsenic were present is some of the juices used for E-cigarettes.
Health science is not known for its longevity in many cases. New studies often contradict earlier ones and many people end up simply having to make decisions without ever feeling that they have all of the facts. To that end, it seems that vaping is not as harmless as many would like to believe