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posted by martyb on Thursday September 15 2016, @11:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the put-that-in-your-pipe... dept.

Electronic cigarettes that heat propylene glycol and glycerol, with or without nicotine and flavours, have been found to be safe based on a new meta-analysis of studies:

An update to the Cochrane review on electronic cigarettes [DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD010216.pub3] [DX] has restated the findings of the initial research, which was completed two years ago. It found that e-cigarettes are potentially a valuable smoking cessation aid, although there was not enough evidence to conclude that they helped people quit smoking confidently.

The updated review now also includes observational data from an additional 11 studies which found no serious side-effects from using e-cigs for up to two years. Aside from throat and mouth irritation, which commonly dissipated over time, the review's co-author, Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, said "in the short to medium term, we didn't find any evidence that they were associated with any serious side-effects."

Evidence from two trials found that e-cigarettes helped smokers to quit in the long term, but "the small number of trials, low event rates and wide confidence intervals around the estimates" meant that the researchers could not conclude with confidence that e-cigs helped smokers quit more than other cessation aids.


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  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday September 16 2016, @08:37AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Friday September 16 2016, @08:37AM (#402677) Journal

    Two issues. The first is that a two-year study is really short. A lot of the effects of smoking are probabilistic or cumulative, and two years may be too short for them to show up. The second is that there's very little regulation on what goes into vapes. Inhaling water vapour is completely safe (well, in moderation - too much can increase the likelihood of fungal growths in the lungs). It looks as if inhaling water vapour with a little bit of nicotine is probably also more or less safe. There's a bunch of other crap that often ends up in the vapes that is known to be carcinogenic.

    Vapes in well-ventillated spaces do seem better for avoiding passive smoke though. Honestly, I don't really care what kind of crap you put in your own body. Feel free to eat, drink, snort, or inject, whatever you want as long as you're not forcing people around you to do the same.

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