Author: Hendry

SALT LAKE CITY — Not long after he had his first cigarette at 14 years old, Braedon Elies had worked his way up to half a pack a day.

About 2 years ago, the 20-year-old St. George resident switched to e-cigarettes in an effort to quit smoking.

He hasn’t looked back since.

“I like the vapor,” Elies said. “A lot more comes out, tastes better, doesn’t stink up your clothes — there’s just a whole bunch of benefits to it.”

Despite Utah having some of the lowest rates of cigarette use in the nation, the e-cigarette craze — particularly among teens — hasn’t skipped the Beehive State. According to data released Monday by the Utah Department of Health, cigarettes have overtaken cigarettes in popularity among Utah teens for the first time.

Nearly 11 percent of Utah students in eighth, 10th and 12th grades reported using e-cigarettes in the past month — almost double the rate two years ago, when 5.8 percent of Utah students said they use e-cigarettes.

In contrast, just 3.4 percent reported smoking regular cigarettes in the past month.

Joseph Miner, executive director of the health department, said it was frustrating to see a product “reversing the successes” Utah had in reducing cigarette use.

“For some reason it’s not considered nearly as serious,” Miner said. “Youth and even retailers who sell these e-cigarettes don’t think it’s as big a problem as tobacco use. Therefore, sales are not very well-controlled.”

Proponents of vaping say the practice is safer than cigarettes because it doesn’t produce the carcinogenic tobacco smoke that kills 480,000 Americans every year.

But health officials warn that little is known about the long-term effects of e-cigarettes, which have been shown to produce small amounts of carcinogens and chemicals.

As e-cigarettes have exploded in popularity, the products have become sleeker and the advertising more glossy. Vape stores now sell the cartridges of e-juice, the concentrated liquid nicotine used in refillable vapes, in flavors such as cherry, cinnamon and cereal milk.

Vaping conventions and competitions have proliferated. And Elies and his girlfriend say they find a sense of community among fellow vapers, many of whom, like Elies, swear e-cigarettes have helped them cut back on smoking.

“It’s pretty crazy,” said Cara Jolley, Elies’ girlfriend. “People used to smoke hookah a lot more, and this has kind of almost replaced it in that sense because you do all these smoke tricks and the fun aspects of that while also not smoking cigarettes.”

But e-cigarettes haven’t been shown to be more effective than nicotine patches or gum at helping people quit smoking, according to Denitza Blagev, a pulmonologist at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray.

And it’s the popularity of e-cigarettes among young teens that worries her.

Although most health care providers agree e-cigarettes are likely safer than traditional cigarettes, studies that show that teens who use e-cigarettes are more likely to graduate to regular cigarette use, she said.

“The way those packages are advertised, they’re colorful, they’re flavored, they’re back to the early days of cigarettes where you have celebrities advertising it,” Blagev said.

Among Utah students who use e-cigarettes, 43 percent said they haven’t tried regular cigarettes, according to the health department report.

“If they were regulated the way we regulate any other (product) like nicotine patches and they weren’t being advertised as this cool thing kids should start, then we could say maybe it works for some people,” Blagev said. “But it’s really when you weigh that against teenagers starting smoking again that is really, really worrisome.”

Regulators have been scrambling to keep up with the exploding e-cigarette industry.

Last year, Salt Lake County Health Department officials collected samples of e-juice — the vials of liquid nicotine used in refillable vapes — from local stores. They found that 61 percent had either more or less nicotine content than advertised, with discrepancies ranging from 88 percent less to 840 percent more nicotine than labeled.

Even samples that were supposed to be nicotine free contained trace amounts of it.

The colorful e-juice or e-liquid cartridges usually aren’t childproof. That’s been a problem for poison control experts, according to Utah Poison Control Center Director Barbara Crouch.

In 2011, the Utah Poison Control Center responded to eight cases of exposure to e-juice.

In 2014, they responded to 133.

“Our biggest concern are the unintended victims, the very small children who get into these,” said Crouch, who said the majority of patients are children under age 6. “I think all of us fear tremendously for these products.”

In May, Utah passed legislation that bars sellers from advertising e-cigarettes as a tool to help quit smoking. The law also requires sellers to have a license to sell e-cigarette products.

Weber-Morgan Health Department Executive Director Brian Bennion said similar regulations enacted in Weber and Morgan counties, which have some of the highest rates of teen e-cigarette use in the state, are working well.

Bennion said use rates among teens had decreased from 20 percent to 15 percent after enacting the regulations.

As for Elies and his girlfriend, they support laws that will make it harder for underage kids to obtain e-cigarettes.

But they said they’ll continue to encourage friends to use e-cigarettes because they believe the benefits outweigh the potential health consequences.

“I think about it from time to time. I know it’s probably not the greatest thing to do,” Elies said. “But it’s obviously better than cigarettes.”

One day, he and Jolley hope to quit entirely.

But they’re not sure when that day will be. When asked how often he vapes, Elies laughs.

His reply: “All day, every day.”

Source : KSL

E-cigarette manufacturers and public health groups are sparing over a new study that claims the non-tobacco products are 95 percent safer than regular cigarettes.

The report commissioned by Public Health England (PHE), an independent panel of experts in the United Kingdom also found that of 2.6 million adult e-cigarettes users in that country, almost all are using a vapor device to help them quit smoking.

Vapor companies are hailing the study, while critics say its findings are premature.

The study has sparked a firestorm and comes as e-cigarettes see strong growth and health groups pressure officials to more tightly regulate the industry.

“How can one conclude they are 95 percent safer where there’s still so much we don’t know?” asked Matthew Farrelly, senior director of the Public Health Policy Research Program at RTI International.

Farrelly, an expert in tobacco research, said it’s probably true that e-cigarettes are less harmful than traditional combustible cigarettes, but cautions that no one can say they’re safe for sure.

Over 300 product brands come from the burgeoning industry with thousands of flavors to choose from, making uniform comparisons difficult.

“If we can get to a place where there’s product testing and standards, and the science evolves, you could imagine a world where it’s a safer alternative to smoking,” he said.

Until then, it could be dangerous to compare smoking in the U.K. with the U.S., some health experts warn.

“The data from our two countries is different,” Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said in a written response to the study.

“We have seen a greater growth in use among kids – and as several studies have shown, the growth in the U.S. has also been among kids who were not previously tobacco users.”

Data released in April from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products showed that e-cigarette use among middle and high school students tripled in the last year.

But the UK report found no evidence to suggest that e-cigarettes are serving as a gateway to smoking for children or nonsmokers in the country.

Even if safer than tobacco cigarettes, Farrelly said e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which can negatively affect developing adolescent brains.

E-cigarette manufactures, however, don’t disagree that e-cigarettes aren’t without risks, but they see the study as validating many of their claims.

Adam Kustin, vice president of marketing at VMR Products, said the UK report fairly says that nicotine is addictive and that e-cigarettes should only be used by current smokers.

The e-cigarette company, best-known for its brand V2, however, called the report highly encouraging because it points out that there is a misperception among roughly half of consumers that e-cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes are of equal risk.

“Given the source of this study, we hope that it provides some influence on the FDA’s position on electronic cigarettes,” Kustin said. “And while the UK hasn’t made any policy changes based on this brand new study, their updated perspective could lead the way in how governments view the societal value of e-cigarettes.”

Health and industry groups are still waiting on the FDA to finalize its tobacco deeming rule to regulate all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and cigars, for the first time.

Brian May, a spokesman for the Philip Morris parent company Altria USA, said one of the most meaningful things FDA can do is create a comprehensive harm reduction strategy for tobacco.

The strategy, he said, should be on that addresses the role less harmful products could play in reducing tobacco use.

“For those that want to reduce the health effects of tobacco use, the best thing is to quit, but certainly for those who continue to use tobacco products there is a growing body that suggests some tobacco products are lower risk than others,” he said. “That’s something we’re engaging the FDA on.”

Health groups though aren’t letting up and are questioning the study’s researchers.

Erika Sward, the American Lung Association’s assistant vice president of national advocacy, cited a report in The Lancet, a UK medical journal. That report attributed the claim that e-cigarettes are 95 percent safer to a paper by David Nutt, who founded the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs in 2010 and served as a consultant to Arbi Group, an e-cigarette distributor.

“One of the studies used to make this conclusion was done by someone on the e-cigarette payroll,” Sward alleged.

“What we’ve seen from the beginning since e-cigarettes have come out are unsubstantiated health claims by the industry and this is just one more.”

Health groups say the new study is only raising pressure on the FDA to act.

According to the American Lung Association, Labor Day will mark the 500th day since FDA first proposed it’s deeming rule.

“All we’ve seen are industry claims, said Sward. “We have yet to see third-party rigorous research about these products and that’s what we need the FDA to do.”

In a statement to The Hill, Nutt said he has never received funding from the tobacco industry or any e-cigarette company.

“The Lancet paper was trying to undermine our research by claiming that two of the protagonists had links with e-cigarette companies,” he said.

Source : TheHill

Teenagers and youngsters in their early 20s are more likely to rate hookah and e-cigarettes as safer than cigarettes, though the trend is not seen among 25- to 34-year-olds, a study says.

Studying data from 2,871 smoking and non-smoking young adults, ages 18-34, Olivia A. Wackowski and Cristine D. Delnevo from Rutgers University in US found that a quarter of young adults believed hookah to be less risky than cigarettes.

“A substantial proportion of non-smokers may view hookah as a safer and acceptable way to use tobacco,” the researchers said.

The researchers found that 62.1 per cent of young adults aged 18 to 24 believed e-cigarettes were less risky than cigarettes, while 54.6 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds believed e-cigarettes to be less risky.

Additionally, 32.7 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds believed hookah to be less risky than cigarettes, while 18.5 per cent of 25 to 34 year-olds believed hookah to be less risky.

57.8 per cent of respondents believed e-cigarettes to be less risky than cigarettes and 11.4 per cent said they were unsure. Nevertheless, 50 per cent of respondents said methanol cigarettes, hookah, cigars, smokeless tobacco and snus were as risky as cigarettes. Also, 30 per cent of all respondents said smokeless tobacco, menthol cigarettes, and cigars were more risky than cigarettes.

Around 24 per cent said hookah was less risky than cigarettes, which was equally prevalent for both cigarette smokers and non-smokers. “This might be associated with differences in advertising messages these groups are exposed to, the variety of flavours these different products are offered in, and in the case of e-cigarettes, possibly an inclination for younger people to attribute more positive feelings toward newer products that are seen as new and ‘techy’,” researchers said.
The study was published in the SAGE journal Health Education & Behaviour.

Source : http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/teenagers-think-hookah-safer-than-cigarettes/1/460939.html

The uncertainty surrounding use of e-cigarettes, alsoknown as vaping, did not stop a government body in the United Kingdom from concluding in a new report that e-cigarettes could help people quit smoking.

The report, published by Public Health England, stated that e-cigarettes are 95% safer than normal cigarettes, and that the “public health opportunities” of these devices should be maximized. The authors of the report recommended that a range of prescription-based e-cigarette options be available, as there are for nicotine replacement therapies.

“I agree with the UK, which is that they are going to medically license e-cigarettes and make them available in the context of smoking cessation aids, as opposed to in this country, (where) they are advertised in every way except for cessation,” said Michael P. Eriksen, dean of the Georgia State University School of Public Health.

“But I think (the report) is overstating the evidence that e-cigarettes are a miracle for cessation,” Eriksen said. The devices do appear to help people quit about as much as nicotine replacement therapies do, yet most smokers are still not successful at quitting, he said.

Related: E-cigarettes: Helping smokers quit or fueling a new addiction?

For those who use e-cigarettes as a cessation aid, the goal is for them to switch entirely to the products and then to eventually give them up, too. “That would be a major public health accomplishment,” Eriksen said.

Many people are so-called dual smokers, using both tobacco and electronic cigarettes, and it is unclear whether they eventually phase out the former. Because of the level of nicotine in e-cigarettes, quitting could be just as tough as giving up the regular kind, said Dr. Jason Jerry, an addiction specialist at Cleveland Clinic.

Although e-cigarettes are probably safer than tobacco cigarettes, the estimate of 95% is probably too high, Eriksen said. That number is based on the opinion of experts, not scientific studies, and could make ex-smokers think they can start vaping, he added.

Related: The 6 most scientifically proven methods to help you quit smoking

Instead of e-cigarettes, Jerry advises patients try nicotine replacement therapy. The level of nicotine in those therapies is known and regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, whereas the level can vary among vaping products, he said. There are also health concerns with the propylene glycol, a main ingredient in many e-cigarettes, flavoring and additives.

“E-cigarettes are probably less detrimental to our health than tobacco cigarettes, but there is still a lot we don’t know,” Jerry said.

If e-cigarettes did become licensed in the United Kingdom, it could make them safer because there would be more regulation of the ingredients, Eriksen said. The upside for companies would be that they could then make claims about their product being a smoking cessation aid. To date no e-cigarettes have been licensed in the United Kingdom, although the new report encourages licensing.

There are no federal regulations on e-cigarettes in the United States. “Everyone is waiting on the FDA,” Eriksen said. The Obama administration has requested the authority to regulate the products like regular cigarettes.

“The UK and European Union are farther ahead … and the U.S. could follow what they’ve done,” Eriksen said. The EU regulations include a ban on advertising e-cigarettes and a requirement that products have health labels.

Many states in the United States have rules about where people can vape and rules that prevent the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. There is concern “whether this is a much more appealing product to adolescents with all the bubble gum and other flavors,” Jerry said.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report found the use of e-cigarettes among high school students tripled from 4.5% in 2013 to 13% in 2014. In that time, use grew among middle schoolers from 1% to 4%.

Source : CNN

While scientists remain divided on the issue here in the U.S., a new report from Public Health England (PHE) — a division of the U.K. Department of Health — has concluded that electronic cigarettes are considerably less harmful than their analog counterparts. How much less? Well, according to official estimates, it’s somewhere in the ballpark of 95 percent.

“In a nutshell, best estimates show e-cigarettes are 95 percent less harmful to your health than normal cigarettes,” the report states, “and when supported by a smoking cessation service, help most smokers to quit tobacco altogether.”
One of the independent authors of the study, Professor Peter Hajek of Queen Mary University, London, added: “My reading of the evidence is that smokers who switch to vaping remove almost all the risks smoking poses to their health.”

However, despite these findings, the review also suggests that people generally don’t know that e-cigarettes are any better than normal ones. The study goes on to show that public misconceptions about the health affects of e-cigarettes have largely discouraged traditional smokers from making the switch — despite the fact that doing so could drastically improve their health. Nearly half of England’s population (44.8 percent, to be exact) doesn’t realize e-cigarettes are less harmful than smoking.
“The problem is people increasingly think they are at least as harmful and this may be keeping millions of smokers from quitting,” Professor Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at PHE, said in a statement, adding that “local stop smoking services should look to support e-cigarette users in their journey to quitting completely.”
It’s estimated that roughly 80,000 people in England die each year as a result of smoking-related health problems, but if all these smokers were to switch to e-cigarettes, researchers estimate that this figure could drop to just 4,000. As co-author of the study Professor Ann McNeill puts it: “E-cigarettes could be a game changer in public health.”

Source : Digitaltrends

Government body says vaping can make ‘significant contribution to endgame of tobacco’ and raises concerns about length of licensing process

Vaping is safer than smoking and could lead to the demise of the traditional cigarette, Public Health England (PHE) has said in the first official recognition that e-cigarettes are less damaging to health than smoking tobacco.

The health body concluded that, on “the best estimate so far”, e-cigarettes are about 95% less harmful than tobacco cigarettes and could one day be dispensed as a licensed medicine in an alternative to anti-smoking products such as patches.

While stressing that e-cigarettes are not free from risk, PHE now believes that e-cigarettes “have the potential to make a significant contribution to the endgame for tobacco”.

The message was backed by the government’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, who nevertheless cautioned that “there continues to be a lack of evidence on the long-term use of e-cigarettes”. She said they should only be used as a means to help smokers quit.

“I want to see these products coming to the market as licensed medicines. This would provide assurance on the safety, quality and efficacy to consumers who want to use these products as quitting aids, especially in relation to the flavourings used, which is where we know least about any inhalation risks.”

The 111-page review raises concerns about the length and cost of the the government’s licensing process, which is a key part of the revised strategy to cut tobacco use.

No e-cigarettes have yet been licensed, unlike other nicotine-replacement therapies such as gums, lozenges and patches. Pilot schemes in Leicester and the City of London allow stop-smoking specialists to offer free e-cigarette starter kits, but smokers elsewhere cannot be offered e-cigarettes on prescription.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency began its work in this area more than two years ago, and manufacturers have complained that it costs them millions to go through the process.

Jane Ellison, the public health minister in England, reminded smokers that the best thing they could do to avoid falling victim to the country’s number one killer was to quit completely.

“Although we recognise the e-cigarettes may help adults to quit, we still want to protect children from the dangers of nicotine, which is why we have made it illegal for under-18s to buy them,” she said.

The review found that almost all of the 2.6 million adults in the UK now thought to be using e-cigarettes are current or former conventional smokers, most using them to help them quit tobacco or to prevent them going back to smoking.

There was no suggestion that the products were a gateway into tobacco smoking, with less than 1% of adults or young people who had never smoked becoming regular cigarette users.

The PHE decision comes after carefully choreographed moves by anti-tobacco campaigners and public health specialists to help move the NHS towards offering better smoking cessation support and to be less negative about e-cigarettes.

Services are being urged to follow those in the north-east of England in offering behavioural support to those wanting to quit tobacco and using e-cigarettes to try to do so.

Smoking kills about 100,000 people a year in the UK, most of those in England where there are thought to be eight million tobacco users. But official figures suggest smoking is now at its lowest prevalence since records started in the 1940s.

Rates are highest in many of the most deprived areas of England, and getting smokers off tobacco is increasingly seen as one of the best ways of reducing health inequalities.

Worryingly for many of those behind the policy change, increasing numbers of people – up to 22%, compared with 8% two years ago – think e-cigarettes are equally or more harmful than tobacco. This is leading some smokers to avoid switching, studies have suggested.

Tobacco reduction campaigners say the public needs to be educated to recognise that although e-cigarettes, like tobacco cigarettes, contain addictive nicotine, they do not contain more dangerous chemicals such as tar and arsenic.

PHE is also advocating careful monitoring of the e-cigarette market, particularly of companies closely involved with or part of big tobacco companies. It says the government must meet its obligations “to protect public health policy from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry”.

Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at PHE, said: “E-cigarettes are not completely risk-free but when compared to smoking, evidence shows they carry just a fraction of the harm.

“The problem is people increasingly think they are at least as harmful and this may be keeping millions of smokers from quitting. Local stop-smoking services should look to support e-cigarette users in their journey to quitting completely.”

Peter Hajek, of Queen Mary University, London, one of the independent authors of the review, said: “My reading of the evidence is that smokers who switch to vaping remove almost all the risks smoking poses to their health. Smokers differ in their needs and I would advise them not to give up on e-cigarettes if they do not like the first one they try. It may take some experimentation with different products and e-liquids to find the right one.”

Ecita, a trade association of e-cigarette manufacturers, said: “There could be huge long-term benefits to taxpayers and the NHS as well as to former smokers and their families. The proposed ban in public places across Wales is very worrying, as are many of the bans in pubs and restaurants across the UK. This appears to be driving a growing number of people to think the harm is the same, deterring smokers from moving to e-cigarettes, and damaging public health.”

The smokers group Forest questioned whether prescribing e-cigarettes on the NHS would be a justifiable use of taxpayers’ money. Simon Clark, its director, said promoting them “as a state-approved smoking cessation aid ignores the fact that many people enjoy vaping in its own right and use e-cigs as a recreational not a medicinal product.”

He said e-cigarettes had been successful because the consumer, not the state, was in charge. “If they want more smokers to switch to e-cigarettes, public health campaigners should embrace consumer choice and oppose unnecessary restrictions on the sale, marketing and promotion of this potentially game-changing product.”

The switch in policy towards e-cigarettes coincided with publication in theJournal of the American Medical Association of research from Los Angeles suggesting that high school students who had use e-cigarettes are more likely to go on to try tobacco.

But Hajek said this did not show that vaping leads to smoking. “It just shows that people who are attracted to e-cigarettes are the same people who are attracted to smoking. People who drink white wine are more likely to try red wine than people who do not drink alcohol.”

Source : theguardian

Electronic cigarettes are not encouraging young people to take up smoking, research by a health charity has shown.

Electronic cigarettes are not encouraging young people to take up smoking, research by a health charity has shown.

Ash (Action on Smoking and Health) found no evidence that young people are being recruited to smoking through using e-cigarettes, despite a rise in the number of 11 to 18-year-olds who claim to have tried the vaporiser.

In 2013, 4% of 11 to 18-year-olds said they had tried e-cigarettes “once or twice”, but in 2015 the figure had risen to 10%.

However, regular use remained rare with 2.4% of young people claiming to use the devices at least once a month.

Regular smoking among 11 to 15-year-olds is at an all-time low of 3%, according to Government figures. Ash claims this indicates that the increase in awareness and use of e-cigarettes has not coincided with a rise in teenage smokers.

The authors noted that there was a rise in the number of young people who thought e-cigarettes were as harmful as smoking tobacco.

Hazel Cheeseman, director of policy at Ash, said: “These results should reassure the public that electronic cigarettes are not linked with any rise in young people smoking. Although more young people are trying electronic cigarettes and many more young people are aware of them, this has not led to widespread regular use or an increase in smoking.”

Professor Kevin Fenton, national director for health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said: “This survey provides further confirmation that regular use of electronic cigarettes is still low and largely confined to young people who are already smokers.

“The new law prohibiting the sale of electronic cigarettes to young people under the age of 18 – which is due to take effect on 1 October – will further reduce teenagers’ access to these products and will reinforce the message that they are intended for adult smokers who want to cut down or stop smoking.”

Source : https://home.bt.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/e-cigarettes-not-encouraging-youngsters-to-smoke-11363998206978