Researchers recently discovered that e-cigarettes are not effective in helping people quit smoking and even harm teeth and gums.
Health experts found that when compared to other smoking cessation aids, e-cigarettes resulted in lower successful attempts. They also noted that e-cigarette users were no less prone to relapse than non-users, per US News.
The study's author John Pierce, a professor emeritus from the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at the University of California, San Diego, said that replacing one's nicotine source "is not the key here."
He underscored that most smokers who attempted to quit smoking by using e-cigarettes did not use nicotine vapes with high nicotine content.
It's unclear whether doing so will improve the quit rate, but it's something health experts will investigate.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permitted the sale of three e-cigarette brands because it can help adults stop smoking traditional cigarettes, according to a report of the National Institutes of Health.
However, Pierce said it is not clear to him which evidence the FDA accepts as evidence that e-cigarettes assist individuals in dropping their smoking habit.
Pierce also noted that kicking the smoking habit is the toughest thing many people can do as it relies on the individual's motivation level.
Over than 12% of those who had recently tried to quit stated they used e-cigarettes alone or in combination with other products based on a 2017 study. Other tobacco products were used by about 2.5 percent of those polled.
About 21% took nicotine replacements or one of the treatments, and 64% simply quit smoking without using anything else.
Around a quarter of e-cigarette, consumers used vapes with a 4% or higher nicotine content. According to Pierce, the number of former smokers who shifted to e-cigarettes jumped to 22% in 2019, with some using high-nicotine vapes.
Not a Great Help in Quitting Smoking
According to Dr. David Hill, a medical spokesman for the American Lung Association, the data supporting e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation has been weak. The study confirms that such a product is "not a great tool" to help people quit smoking.
Furthermore, according to another study, e-cigarette users have a distinct bacterial composition in their mouths, putting them at risk for oral microbes that are more comparable to those found in cigarette smokers than in nonsmokers.
In recent research conducted by Deepak Saxena, a professor at NYU College of Dentistry in New York City, his colleagues have seen proof that vaping can damage the teeth and gums. Vaping can upset the bacterial balance of the mouth, making it more inclined to inflammation and infection, just like smoking a cigarette.
Better To Be Safe Than Sorry
Health Day reported that the researchers followed the oral health of 84 persons for six months, including cigarette smokers, e-cigarette users, and nonsmokers, in a new study.
The researchers discovered that vapers had a distinct oral microbiome: it was possibly healthier than smokers', but different from nonsmokers.' In many aspects, vapers' microbes resembled those of cigarette smokers.
It's unclear what the findings mean for vape users' dental health in the long run. Since e-cigarettes are still new, it is still not clear whether the microbes could cause oral conditions like leukoplakia, which are white patches in the mouth that can be precancerous. According to Saxena,
"If you don't use e-cigarettes, don't start," the researcher advised emphatically.
