Are E-Cigarettes Really 'Healthier' Than Traditional Cigarettes?

There is much debate as to whether e-cigarettes are in fact ‘better’ for you than traditional cigarettes because their potential adverse effects are only beginning to be researched. Combine this with the fact that, between 2011 and 2015, the use of e-cigarettes among US high-school students rose by around 900%, the situation makes for concerning reading.

Indeed, a new study published in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which looks at possible biomarkers of harms in the lungs, concludes that in some ways e-cigarettes could be just as harmful as traditional cigarettes. More specifically, the investigation found that e-cigarettes appear to trigger unique immune responses, in addition to those triggered by traditional cigarettes. Immune responses are biological reactions to foreign substances and play a role in disease contraction.

Sure enough, this looks to be the case for those caused by the smoking of e-cigarettes, with the study finding that users exhibit significant increases in several proteins in their airways that, if left, can contribute towards lung diseases, such as COPA and cystic fibrosis. The same proteins outside the lung are linked with cell death/damage to the tissues lining blood vessels and organs.

Other biomarkers found in e-cigarette users were also associated with a susceptibility to lung disease and other pathologies in the lungs, including chronic bronchitis, bronchiectasis, asthma and wheeze. The study therefore seems to significantly challenge the perception that e-cigarettes are healthier than traditional cigarettes.

Click here to read more in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.