WATERLOO — While e-cigarettes seem better than regular cigarettes when studied in the lab because there are fewer chemicals, little is actually known about the effects on a person’s health and behaviour.

“It fully depends on how it’s being used,” said David Hammond, an associate professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo.

Hammond launched a study — the first of its kind in Canada — to figure out whether there is any benefit to e-cigarettes, which are often touted as a great option for smokers who want to quit.

“We’re recruiting smokers and basically seeing what happens when they smoke e-cigarettes,” Hammond said.

People in the study, which is funded by the Ministry of Health, will be followed for six months to learn about the chemical levels in their bodies and about their smoking habits. Not much is known about whether people replace smoking with e-cigarettes, or if they only use e-cigarettes in situations where smoking is not allowed.

“We don’t know to what extent there is a benefit at all,” Hammond said. “There’s all this decision-making at the provincial and federal levels, but they have little information to go on.”

E-cigarettes have caught many governments off-guard. Just five years ago, the devices were virtually non-existent. Now, nearly one in 10 Canadians age 15 and older report having tried them. Use is particularly high among young people, most of whom never smoked, and smokers.

“It’s really a consumer driven phenomenon,” Hammond said.

E-cigarettes have fewer chemicals than regular cigarettes, which top 5,000 to 7,000 including about 70 carcinogens.

“Nothing is quite as dirty as a cigarette,” Hammond said.

Most cigarette chemicals come from combustion, while e-cigarettes heat liquid enough to vaporize but not reach the point of combustion. It’s unknown, though, exactly what level of chemicals people get from e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes are a closer experience to smoking than nicotine patches and gums and could compete with cigarettes, which is why it’s vital to know more about their effect on users.

“These things actually have the potential to help people quit, but they have the potential to bring more people into the market,” Hammond said.

Waterloo researchers are aiming to recruit 200 smokers. The data will be published and shared directly with the government.

“It has the potential to really inform new regulations,” Hammond said.

Source : http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5930653-waterloo-study-aims-to-better-understand-e-cigarette-effects/