Another Cheap Shot from Anti-Smoking Groups: Ecigs Could Damage Lungs

Sept. 3, 2012 - PRLog -- A so called study from the University of Athens Greece has purported that, electronic cigarettes, immediately effects users airways by increasing airway resistance for a ten minute span. This, in turn, brought the media from around the globe to title the news; “Ecigarettes Could Damage Lungs New Study Finds”.  The media seems like that guy who spikes any volley in the air and gloats regardless of whether it made it over the net.
   Basically the study took 32 people (Not enough participants to rule out variables) 8 that have never smoked and 24 that do. In the 24 smokers there were 11 with normal lung function and 13 with chronic pulmonary conditions like COPD. Each participant used an ecig for ten minutes and they measured their airway resistance and all the healthy people had an immediate response or restriction to their airways. The persons with conditions apparently had an effect but it was not immediately recognizable. We do not know why or how because they tend to gloss over that potentially important variation.
   So what does this all mean? Well, it doesn’t really mean a whole hell of a lot because this has nothing to do with electronic cigarettes and it is a science that we have understood in biology and pathology for some decades now. It’s called the PRIMARY IMMUNE RESPONSE. This is where any foreign material enters the body. Examples of foreign materials like automobile exhaust, your air freshener device, or even the hottest chili that Mexico can bring us in restaurants. What happens in the primary immune response is that your body doesn’t know what the material is and there for considers it guilty until proven innocent. The affected area responds immediately with an inflammation of cells and a flush of white blood cells to go check the intruder’s papers for authorization.
   An increased airway resistance in the trachea due to vaping an ecig is expected by the body until it realizes that it is not a threat.  After some time if the body finds no damage to cellular structure, it then adapts to recognize the material upon its second and subsequent entry.  So the “study” mentioned above didn’t tell us anything we didn’t all ready know. Furthermore, it neglected to cross the study with the effects of smoking traditional tobacco to see the difference, as well as not telling us what would happen after long term use.  You know… more than 10 minutes. Besides these facts that are obvious to even a high school science teacher, the study was limited to such a small number of participants that it’s difficult to even interpret the immediate effects with any real accuracy to society at large.
   The interesting thing about this news coverage is how much it has been covered. I myself follow ecigarette news daily and I’ve noticed trends in the frequency of news and what sources it comes from.  I was astonished this morning when I saw an enormous flood of stories from around the planet that was trying to get on the bandwagon of this story. Two things are possibly happening here to explain this sudden supernova of articles, all written about the same story. Either the authors of the study and or their financers have paid to make it widely available or the media is just jumping at any hot debate to make you fear for your life. Either way it just seems biased without transparency.
   So here is the bottom line. Ecigarettes are better than smoking. That’s because just about anything is better than smoking. When Dr. Riccardo Polosa and his team at the University of Catania in Italy did their own pilot study on ecigs as a smoking cessation tool, they found that 50% of the participants had reduced their cigarette use and a quarter of them had quit all together.  Granted it was about 40 participants but they admitted it was a pilot study and didn’t make a big deal out of it. There is that transparency factor again!
Fascinating to note also is most of the individuals in their pilot stated that initially they had reactions like dry mouth and throat irritation the first few weeks but that all side effects subsided on their own afterwards. It is common for new ecigarette users to experience a cough. What most people don’t realize is that this is where your lungs are now trying to clean themselves out when you stopped using tobacco cigarettes.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been using electronic cigarettes for up to 5 or 6 years in some cases and their anecdotal reports sound a lot like someone who quit cold turkey. No more waking up coughing, they have increased respirations and ability to exercise or do menial tasks like walking up stairs or running. Dr. Polosa himself said in an interview “People that can be switched completely to ecigarettes will perceive exactly the same benefits as those that have quit smoking. With the main advantage that they do not suffer from withdrawal symptoms".
When you see stories in the news telling you that something is bad for you, read it with an open mind. Check their sources and use your common sense. They will use every tactic at their disposal to sway your perception. I’m not accusing them of being part of some conspiracy, even though there are billions and billions of dollars invested in smoking cessation for governments and organizations that employ millions of people who make a living from telling people to quit.  It could be as innocent as their father or mother died from chronic bronchitis or lung cancer and they devoted their life to helping people but somewhere along the way, between the mandatory reports and necessary legislation requirements they have to meet, day in and day out, they have forgotten how to think critically. That makes them a walking gun for anyone who is smart enough in political science and has a vested interest in the industry at large to keep people smoking and on the other hand tell them to stop.
Will ecigarettes damage your lungs? No. Nobody ever actually said that. Will they help you quit? Maybe but that depends on you. What is always certain and even agreed upon by many professionals in health care is that anything that helps reduce the harm of tobacco use is a benefit.  Ecigarettes have shown incredible promise in helping you do just that.  Reduce harm.
If you would like more information or just need some questions answered, Phoenix Ecigs is here to help you. We are former smokers that now use electronic cigarettes or nothing at all. Send us an email, call us, or leave a thread on our forum. We understand the frustration of cigarette addiction and that is why we are in this business.