How does vaping really affect our health?

We've all seen the horror stories in the media, reporting that e-cigarettes will give you popcorn lung, cancer and other health problems. A lot of so called scientists have looked for problems, and they've published studies claiming that they've found them as well. In the most extreme cases we've been told that e-cigarettes and vaping is even more dangerous than smoking, and the media keeps on reporting these stories. According to what has been reported in this area since I started vaping, I should be really ill and probably don't have many months left to live right now. So why am I feeling great then?

One of the problems, of course, is that the media writes whatever generates clicks and don't care too much about if the research they report is any good. I've written about a few of these cases before (for example here and here) and there are of course quite a few problems. I've also seen claims that e-cigarette vapor will make cancer in rats worse... if you let them breathe only vapor for weeks, and that you can kill human lung cells by drowing them in e-liquid. The one thing that all these studies have in common is that they do not study how e-cigarettes affect smokers, or humans in general actually, in real life. They all set out to find a problem, and to find it they had to go to pretty extreme measures, designing scenarios that would never happen in the real world. In most cases it's pretty obvious as well, at least for people who have some clue of what vaping is all about, which should be a pre-requisite to be allowed to publish these studies, don't you think? As Boromir would have said: One does not simply endure dry-puffing on an e-cig for very long. This is also the reason that I, despite that I should be feeling shit according to the media and certain "scientists", feel great. I don't sleep inside a small chamber filled with vapor, I don't poor pure nicotine into my lungs and I hate the taste of a dry-hit.

Meanwhile, in the real world, someone has actually studied how e-cigarettes. I wasn't aware of this study until I read about it on guidetovaping.com yesterday: Long Term Study Shows Vaping Improves Health. Now that sounds like it coincides a lot better with my own experience. The original study was published in November last year from what I can see. So in the real world vaping has helped people resolve problems like Bronchitis, Asthma, recurring respiratory infections and shortness of breath among others. Sounds familiar. Remember that this is a study that are looking at long term effects of vaping, we're talking of people who, like me, have vaped for at least three years:

Health effects related to changing to e-cigarettes were pronounced and very positive. In the subgroup of vapers with 3 or more years of use, adverse heath events decreased from 1.78 while smoking to 0.07 after starting to vape. This amounts to a 96% decrease in self-reported adverse health events [...] The group as a whole reported on average a decline of 1.1 (61.8%) adverse health events (resolution of existing conditions, or improvement) after starting to vape.

As you can see, in the real world, vaping improves the health of smoker significantly. The doctor behind the study, Robert L. Cranfield MD, even managed to dig up 10 vapers with no history of smoking.... and they didn't report any problems either.

While the number of never smoker using e-cigarettes is low in all studies, there are still enough of them to gather information as a basis of harm potential to never smokers as a result of use of vapor products. This study showed no increased adverse health events in the limited pool of 10 individuals found.

While this of course do not show that never smokers will have positive health effects from vaping, and the positive effects experience by smokers who switch are of course due to the fact that they quit smoking, it leads to a very important conclusion:

We cannot assume that a 95% harm reduction in smokers means a 5% risk of harm to never smokers.

Actually, pure logic would lead to this conclusion, but I've seen the argument used by the ANTZ more than once.

This shows that when studying potential harms from vaping, or actually this goes for studying potential harm in general, it's important to study real life, not made up fantasy scenarios designed to find problems. You see the reason I'm still feeling great is that I actually live in the real world (well most of the time at least). I highly recommend reading the report, it's not that long and well worth it.

Image by WorldArtsMe

Help spreading the truth to doctors, health care professionals and scientists

Professor Gerry Stimson, Jacques Le Houezec PhD, Professor Riccardo Polosa, Konstantinos Farsalinos PhD and Carmen Escrig PhD are asking doctors, health care professional and scientists around the world to educate themselves on e-cigarettes and vaping and to support their M.O.V.E  manifesto.

We call on our colleagues to sign this declaration in support of the merits of electronic cigarettes based on scientific evidence and ethical debate.

I do believe that the statements and opinions of Doctors and health care professionals in the vaping debate will affect the opinion of the general public, and the politicians, strongly, either directly or indirectly through the media. I expect my doctor to know what he's talking about and trust his advice, and I don't think I'm the only one here. So I really appreciate these guys efforts to reach out and educate those of their colleagues who still needs it, and gathering the signatures of those already educated to create a strong voice that will help educating the general public.

We, as vapers, can help them do this by spreading the word to health care professionals around the world. Give this link to your own doctor, your friends that are doctors or any health care professional you come across:

https://sciencecig.wordpress.com/move/

Don't underestimate the value of the pleasure of vaping

Happy vaping

I once knew a man who lived until he was 104 years old. He was my fathers boss for several years, I think until he was almost 90. But he was around the office where my dad worked for even longer, keeping an eye at the business he had used his life building. I remember one day my father came home from work and told us that he had observed his old boss coming up the stairs. He was 94 at that time and using a walking stick, probably because some doctor or his family had told him he should so he wouldn't loose his balance, fall and break something. When he got to the top of the stairs, he looked around to see if someone could see him, and when he thought no-one did (he could barely see, but that didn't stop him from driving a car), he put his walking stick under his arm, and started jogging down the corridor to the office where he was heading.

When my father asked this man why he thought he had reached the age of 100, his answer was crystal clear: A minimum of 1 glass of red wine and some chewing tobacco every single day since he was 20 years old. Now, one could argue that the anti-oxidants in the wine had something to do with it. However, I think, and I'm sure he is nodding his head at me from whatever better place he is in now, that the fact that he really had allowed himself to enjoy life was the real reason he had lived this long. When he was 104 his body started getting weaker and it was difficult to live alone, so his family decided he should be in a retirement home. Probably against his will. Mentally he was still 110%, and he could tell stories both from yesterday and 90 years back. At his 100th birthday he even recognized me and my sister, only having seen us once or twice (we were like 10 and 13 years old at the time). After he moved to the retirement home however, my dad said he didn't look happy any more. He said the home was ok, but he couldn't always manage to smuggle in his wine and tobacco, and complained about all the old people there. He died a few months after he moved to the home.

So what is the point of me telling this story? Well, I started thinking about this man again now when I read about the FDA putting a value on the lost pleasure consumers may suffer from a ban on e-cigarettes (http://goo.gl/1ct5eA) and Dick Puddlecote's blogpost on the subject: http://goo.gl/tTxtOb9. The story above is a real life (and maybe extreme) example of what science also has shown: Happy people, that allows themselves to enjoy life, tend to live longer. (Loads of info on this on the internet, for example here: http://goo.gl/b6Yg8p). This leads me to think that switching to e-cigarettes has an advantage over other NRT products, and maybe oven over quitting without help, that is easily overlooked: It lets you keep the pleasure that you find in smoking. Of course when smoking cigarettes, the effect of this pleasure on your life span is negated by all the smoking related diseases you'll probably catch... and then some, but with e-cigarettes this is not the case. To quit smoking actually also has some side-effects that could make you unhappy. Weight gain is one common example (http://goo.gl/msykud), which may make you unhappy but is also not good for your health by itself. I don't have any science confirming this, but from my own experience, switching to e-cigarettes gave me no problems with increased hunger or weight gain. In fact when my lungs started healing I was able to loose 25 kilos, as I was able to run again.

The fact that we, as ex-smokers, take pleasure in vaping is largely responsible for the success of the e-cigarettes. It minimizes the chance of reverting to cigarettes, but maybe it also prolongs our lives compared to quitting by other means? I'm not saying one can't enjoy life without nicotine, but one of the reasons we were smokers once was that we enjoyed it. My dads old boss enjoyed a glass of wine, and it looks like this outweighed the negative effects that a little alcohol every day will have on your body. People take pleasure in different things and enjoy life in different ways. But whatever makes you happy (as long as it doesn't contain poisons that will negate this effect) might make you live longer, and most certainly it will make you live better. The FDA put a price on this, I'd say happiness is priceless. In fact, I might as well go ahead and admit it: I have no current plans on cutting down on my vaping... it's a pleasure I'll allow myself to enjoy, for the sake of my mental and physical health. Tonight I'm going to re-build my Hellfire dripper, whoop out some of my favourite e-liquid and just enjoy. I highly recommend you do the same. Have a nice weekend :)


photo credit: rpavich via photopin cc

Danish Health and Medicines Authorities trying to scare the Danish people to death

Before Easter I wrote a post (http://goo.gl/4iQfP6) about the Danish Health and Medicines Authority being controlled by big pharma. I had a question mark at the end of my headline, but now I think that question mark needs to be removed. And the same goes for certain danish media. I'm not saying that big pharma controls the media directly but they seem to write whatever the Health and Medicines Authority feeds them with no questions asked, so in effect they write what big pharma wants.

An article (http://goo.gl/9uTbP9) in danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten from Monday reports some worrying statements from the Danish minister of Health, Nick Hækkerup. He wants to step up efforts to restrict e-cigarettes, and makes the following statement, with no reference to any scientific or other proof I may add: "We are talking about products, that can appeal to children and young people, and that can contribute to create interest for smoking regular cigarettes. Therefore I will contact the parties in the danish parliament (Folketinget) with the intention of discussing where we can step up our efforts". The statement is quoted from a written response to a question asked by the Danish Parliament's Health and Prevention delegation (http://goo.gl/fttKZu, in Danish, I doubt google translate will work here). Appearantly the gateway argument is not dead in Denmark, but common sense on the other hand...

The article then goes on with the following sub-headline: "Can cause cancer". The Health and Medicines Authority informs the journalist that there has been several adverse side effect registered, like irritation of the airways from short-term use, and allergic reactions. They also state that propylene glycol and glycerin is under suspicion of causing damage to the respiratory system and that some studies have found carcinogens in the products (editor: e-juice products). And of course, we must not forget that nicotine is addictive. Again, no reference to scientific proof whatsoever. This is exactly the kind of scaremongering big pharma wants, and gets, in Denmark these days.

At the end of the article there is another "think about the children" statement, and a lot of the parties in the Danish Parliament are willing to look into an age limit on e-cigarettes. Even a vendor of e-cigarettes supports an age limit. "Of course that is a good idea. I have children myself, and I wouldn't be happy if they started using e-cigarettes", says Frank Eskelun, the vendor in question. So... this is what it is all about then? An age limit? Well we all agree on that don't we? This is what the article should have focused on; responsible regulation of a product created for adults. So why all this scaremongering from the Health and Medicines Authorities and the minister of Health then? I'll go edit my previous post and remove the question mark to make it a bit clearer. I suspect they are starting to realize they will not be able to legally get rid of the competition, and now try desperately to scare people away from vaping. Scaring people to death just got a new, scarier meaning.

On the bright side, at the very bottom of the article, we get a clue to why the pharmaceutical industry is lobbying their asses off in Denmark at the moment: In 2010 1% of the Danish population used e-cigarettes, now the number is up to 5%.

photo credit: SodanieChea via photopin cc

The Norwegian Heart and Lung Patient Organization (LHL) asks employers to ban e-cigarettes

The Norwegian Heart and Lung Patient Organization
don't want me to vape at work.

In this article in Norwegian publication "Dagens medisin" ("Daily medicine") The Norwegian Heart and Lung Patient Organization (LHL) asks employers, and other owners of premises where people gather, to ban e-cigarettes in the same way smoking is banned. The Norwegian Health Department wanted e-cigarettes to be part of the Norwegian tobacco law when it was revised last year, but the suggestion was left out by a mistake. Turns out they forgot to ban e-cigarettes. This means that it is up to the employers themselves to decide whether or not e-cigarettes is permitted indoors. And now, LHL is asking employers to act as if the tobacco law included e-cigarettes. Their arguments for doing this? Not surprisingly they pull out their precautionary principles and that "we don't know enough about the e-cigarettes yet", which I agree with them on. They don't know enough about e-cigarettes yet, because the haven't taken the time to ask someone or just google it.

General secretary of the LHL, Frode Jahren, says that even though e-cigarettes are assumed to be far less harmful than normal cigarettes, there is people that will react to it and that one shouldn't need a law to tell us to use common sense show respect for others... but still he wants employers to implement rules to ban e-cigarettes everywhere indoors even if no-one reacts to the vapor. Where is the common sense in that?

Jahren is then asked this question: "Some will react to the use of perfume in public spaces as well. Should we ban everything we don't like?" Seems like the journalist might have caught the point here. Jahren responds saying that we don't know enough (editor: Wrong Jahren, you don't), and then he pulls out the normalization argument, which I wrote about yesterday: http://goo.gl/dYjyJk.

But, luckily, we have SIRUS here in Norway. Again, Karl Erik Lund comments on the case and tells the readers of "Dagens medisin" what we do know about e-cigarettes, and how "dangerous" they really are. He argues that if we should ban e-cigarettes because of the health risks, we also need to ban theatrical smoke. Lund also says that a lot of people have learned to hate smoke and their resistance towards e-cigarettes are based on feelings rather than reason. He concludes that the arguments for banning e-cigarettes by including them in the tobacco law is "pretty weak".

After reading the article I'm left with the feeling that a lot of these organizations are just the victims of ignorance. I really do think that LHL doesn't know enough about e-cigarettes and vaping, and that they do believe the gateway argument and the normalization argument. It's not that strange really, cause these arguments are the same as thos used by the Health Department here in Norway. And this is potentially a big problem. If the patient organizations stop thinking and just adopts whatever argument the health department give them, they become rather useless. A lot of these organizations have done a lot of great work, fighting for their members patient rights, but in the case of the e-cigarettes, I say they haven't done their job at all. And I'm sad to see that.

New years resolution update: Completed!

When I started this blog in the beginning of this year I wrote that I'd give you some updates on my new years resolution: running a half marathon in less than 2 hours. 2 years ago I couldn't walk up one flight of stairs without getting out of breath, and my kids could tell that I was coming home 3 minutes before I was actually home... cause they could hear me coughing my lungs out a long way down the street. As I've said before, we vapers are the best proof that vaping works (http://vapingiraffe.blogspot.no/2014/02/you-are-proof-that-vaping-works.html), and I've encouraged you to challenge yourself a bit and try to do something you couldn't do before. In that way you can show people what you can do now that you've done the switch. This is one of the reasons I set this goal for myself, and hopefully I could inspire others by writing about it here.

So this morning I went to the gym to do a 10k run, but after 10k it felt pretty good so I decided to keep on running. And it helped a bit that they had put a sticker on the treadmill announcing they had a competition going on where 21.1km was one of the exercises and I could win a bag of goodies if I completed. I have no idea what is in that bag... yet. It's just raffled among everyone entering I think, so with my luck I'm never going to either :) Anyway, after 112 minutes I was done, in all possible ways, and very happy that this years new years resolution is completed. I think this might be the only new years resolution I've ever completed as well.

So again, hope I've inspired some of you to challenge yourself a bit. It doesn't have to be running a marathon (or a half one), but find something you couldn't do when you were smoking and show people around you that vaping does work. Cause YOU are the best proof of this.

YOU are proof that vaping works!

I some times get faced with questions about the effect of the e-cigarette on my health. Is it really that much better than cigarettes in the long run, or is it just as bad for me as the cigarettes? The world is full of sceptics, that think vaping is just another way of smoking that will kill you eventually. Even the Cancer Society say they will not recommend e-cigarettes because they are not certain what effect it has on your health and says it's misleading to market and sell e-cigarettes as "healthy cigarettes". At least they did in May 2013 in this article: http://www.nrk.no/livsstil/_-e-royk-er-nesten-helt-ufarlig-1.11002150. So how can we face these sceptics and give them proof?

You can of course start throwing numbers back at them, just pick among the growing amount of research on the internet showing that e-cigarettes ARE in fact a million times better than cigarettes. But, as we all know by now, you're also able to find "scientific proof" of the opposite and of all the dangers of vaping as well. I've found this approach to be quite ineffective when it comes to convincing sceptics to be honest. And usually they start questioning the sources of the research I'm referring to, claiming this is research that is paid by the e-cigarette manufacturers or some even think that Big Pharma is going into the e-cigarette business and claims they pay for the research. I have even faced the claim that big Tobacco is behind it all... yup, true story.

Jim Oliver ran the NY marathon while vaping.
Can you challenge yourself and show others vaping works?

So what is your best bet then, trying to say help a sceptical smoker do the switch? If you're a vaper, I say YOU are the best proof that this actually works. Tell them your story, or even better: show them. People who know me have seen the transformation over the last couple of years and when showing them what I can do now there is very little doubt that this works. Find something you know you couldn't do while you were smoking, like running, walking up stairs, play with the kids, I'm sure you can think of something. And by doing this I think a lot of you might surprise yourself as well. Have you tried challenging yourself a bit physically after you switched to vaping? If not, my advice is to do so. Pick ONE thing you couldn't do, or struggled to do, or found very tiring while you were smoking and try it now. You don't have to run a marathon or climb Mount Everest, just take the stairs instead of the elevator once in a while, take a long walk on a Sunday morning or go play football with the kids. Even though you think people didn't notice you were in bad shape, they did. They noticed that you were coughing your lungs out when you reached the top of the stairs, or that you were short of breath from the slightest physical challenge, or that you never ran around with the kids... cause you couldn't. Show these people what has happened to you now. YOU are living proof that vaping works!