The eternal vape vs cigarette debate is still raging on. In the red corner you have cigarettes,
the established foul smelling way to intake nicotine with years of research behind its
effects. In the blue corner you have the newcomer, vapes. With little research
behind their effects and nice smelling clouds of nicotine to mask their dangerous nature,
they’ve become a crowd favourite. But which alternative is worse for your health?
First, let's take a look at smoking. You can smoke a lot of things, obviously, but since
we here at The Infographics Show don't want to condone anything illegal, let's assume 'smoking'
means regular tobacco cigarettes. Tobacco is the common name for plants in the nicotiana genus,
a type of leafy herbaceous plant native to North and South America, though one tobacco subspecies,
Nicotiana suaveolens, is found on the east coast of Australia. Tobacco plants are a member of the
nightshade family, a group of plants that also includes tomatoes and eggplants. The leaves
contain a type of neurotoxin called nicotine, which acts as a natural insecticide and makes the
plant unappealing to most plant-eating animals. But, as we've seen throughout history with things
like magic mushrooms and ghost peppers, a plant being poisonous and tasting unpleasant has never
deterred humans from putting it in their mouths. Tobacco leaves have always been incredibly popular
among the indigenous people of the Americas, with archaeological evidence suggesting that medicinal,
recreational, and spiritual use of the plant dates back over 12 thousand years. Even today,
tobacco is an important part of religious rites and political agreements for native americans.
You've probably seen the native characters in cowboy movies smoking peace pipes before. Well,
that's only one ceremonial use of tobacco in native american culture- it's also given as
an offering to the gods, or as a gift to tribal leaders, and among the Cree and Ojibwe people,
it's a crucial part of the purification rituals performed in a sweat lodge.
When Europeans first colonized the new world, tobacco was one of the many discoveries they
brought back with them, and it was an instant hit. Like the Native Americans, Europeans
took to using it as a stimulant, decongestant, and topical painkiller, but they also started
smoking it recreationally. Doctors raved about its effects in medical journals- one Spanish
doctor even claimed it could cure 36 different illnesses in 1571. In the 1600s, there was even
a popular song by Tobias Hume called "Tobacco is like love." But, like a lot of things that
were used medicinally in the 1600s, tobacco's supposed benefits would later be shown to come
with some pretty serious side effects. You're not watching this video from the 1600s, presumably,
so we probably don't need to tell you that smoking tobacco is actually really, really bad for you.
So, let's go through all the negative health effects of tobacco smoking. First off - while
nicotine is a very effective stimulant and painkiller, it's extremely poisonous if consumed
in large enough doses. And, considering that the leaf of Nicotiana tabacum, the tobacco plant
most often used to make cigarettes, contains about 20000 parts per million of nicotine,
it's very possible to feel some of these effects if you smoke enough. On the mild end nicotine
poisoning can cause nausea, lightheadedness, nightmares, uncontrollable hiccuping,
and flatulence. On the severe end, it can cause vasoconstriction (the shrinking of blood vessels),
heart palpitations, diarrhea, severe anxiety, and even death. That's bad enough on its own,
but when you combine that with the fact that nicotine is also highly addictive,
you've got a potentially lethal cocktail. Even if you decide to quit, you're still not out of
the woods- you can still get nicotine poisoning from chewing nicotine gum and topical patches that
smokers use to wean themselves off cigarettes. Worse than the nicotine itself is the slew of
other chemicals introduced into the cigarette by the curing process. Tobacco has to be dried in the
sun before being sold- this decreases the potency of the nicotine and makes it safer to consume.
However, that decreased potency is quickly canceled out by the chemicals that are added
during the curing process. These chemicals are meant to improve the smoking experience by doing
things like helping the tobacco and cigarette wrapper burn at a more even rate and helping
the body process the nicotine, but most of these chemicals are also poisonous in their own right.
According to the American Lung Association, among the 600 chemicals that make up your
average cigarette are ammonia, acetone, methanol, butane, and carbon monoxide.
Some of those chemicals might sound familiar, so let's quickly elaborate- ammonia is one of the
chemicals that your body flushes out when you pee, and it's typically also used to bleach hair and as
a component in explosives. Acetone is commonly available as a paint remover. Butane is highly
flammable and normally sold as barbecue fuel. Carbon Monoxide isn't really used for anything,
but it's a byproduct of gas stoves and fireplaces that is so toxic you rarely hear about it outside
of the sentence 'make sure to replace the batteries in your carbon monoxide detector'.
Cigarettes also can contain formaldehyde, a preservative used to embalm dead bodies and
museum specimens. These chemicals are already pretty scary, but the addition of fire to the
equation makes things even more sketchy as it causes those 600 chemicals to combine and remix
into more than 7000 new compounds. At least 69 of these chemicals are proven to be carcinogenic,
which is just a fancy way of saying that they cause cancer. One of these compounds is known
as free-base nicotine, which reaches your brain much faster than normal nicotine when inhaled.
In addition to an increased risk for pretty much every type of cancer, smoking also
increases your risk of stroke, heart disease, osteoporosis, vision problems, and diabetes.
That's a result of the vasoconstriction we mentioned earlier- when your veins shrink,
oxygen can't be distributed through your body as efficiently, and that leads to a whole host
of chronic health conditions. One of the most gruesome side effects of smoking is the fact that
a lot of those chemical compounds stick around in your lungs even after you've exhaled. These
compounds bind together with burnt particulates that enter your lungs along with the smoke,
combining together into a sticky black substance called Tar, which can seriously clog up your
lungs and cause long-term breathing problems. Another big health risk of smoking tobacco
is second-hand smoke. This is the reason why smoking indoors is banned in most places, and
public smoking is restricted to specific places. Once there's a lit cigarette in an enclosed area,
all those fun chemicals dissipate into the air, meaning that if you smoke indoors, you expose
everyone around you to the same chemicals that you're putting into your own body. Obviously,
it's in a much smaller amount, but it still can be a significant health risk. Studies have shown
that repeated exposure to second-hand smoke can increase the risk of stroke by 20 to 30%,
and increase the risk of heart disease by 25 to 30%. And if that wasn't bad enough,
a study published in the National Library of Medicine has suggested that there might even be
such a thing as third-hand smoke. It sounds crazy, but it's true- according to the researchers, you
can even be exposed to carcinogens left behind on surfaces that someone has recently smoked around.
So, yeah, your school's health class teacher wasn't lying, and those scary PSAs you saw
on YouTube weren't exaggerating- smoking is actually that bad for you. No wonder so many
people now are quitting smoking and switching to vapes. It's so much cleaner and less addictive,
and- oh, most vape juice still contains nicotine? Even some of the ones that advertise themselves
as nicotine-free? Well, that's a bummer. Already, that's a mark against vaping, since
everything we already said about the nicotine in cigarettes is also true for the majority of vapes.
The history of vaping is much shorter than the history of cigarettes. While tobacco companies had
been researching nicotine vaporizers and smokeless alternatives to cigarettes since the early 60's,
the first commercially available electronic cigarette was invented in 2003 by pharmacist
Hon Lik. Hon was a heavy smoker, but after his father's death from lung cancer, he decided to
quit. But, like a lot of people, he struggled to quit. In 2001, he had the idea to patent an
electronic alternative to cigarettes that would vaporize nicotine and give people trying to quit
something to mimic the sensation of holding a cigarette. Hon had lofty goals for his invention,
hoping that someday it would replace cigarettes entirely. Unfortunately, it seems that might not
work out. As of the writing of this video, Hon Lik has still not successfully quit smoking.
Since their invention in 2003, e-cigarettes, now more commonly known as 'vapes',
have evolved into a variety of styles ranging from those designed to look like cigars or pipes
to more futuristic designs that can cost up to 200 dollars. Regardless of what they look like,
most vapes work the same way. They have a mouthpiece, a heating element, a microprossessor,
a battery, and a cartridge, which is loaded with e-liquid or 'vape juice'. The atomizer
contains a heating element and a wicking material that draws the juice out of the cartridge where
it gets vaporized by the heating element. hence the name. Once the liquid is vaporized it can be
inhaled just like regular cigarette smoke. On the face of it, that does sound a lot cleaner
than smoking. It's basically just breathing in steam with a bit of nicotine in it, right? Well,
just like with cigarettes, it's not just the nicotine that you have to worry about.
Vaping really took off in the West in the 2010s, when it evolved into its own subculture. The
explosion of popularity was so fast that, despite most countries not yet having regulations in
place, bootleg e-liquids started showing up on the market. And just like with alcohol during
prohibition, most of the bootleg stuff wasn't exactly made with consumer safety in mind. Back
in 2019, the United States experienced an outbreak of over 1600 cases of unexplained lung injury,
34 of which were fatal. The victims of this mystery illness had one major thing in common-
they were all vapers. Ninety-two percent of patients admitted that they'd been using
black-market THC vape cartridges, and while the remainder reported only smoking nicotine, the CDC
notes that this might not be entirely reflective of the truth since many of these victims lived in
states where cannabis was illegal at the time. The lung injury, which doctors now call
E-Cigarette or Vaping Associated Lung Injury (EVALI for short), is primarily caused by an
additive called vitamin E acetate, which is a type of synthetic vitamin E typically used in
topical skin cream. Research has suggested that while vitamin E acetate is harmless when applied
externally, it might have adverse effects on lung functionality if inhaled. Though this
is the prevailing theory, the reality is that EVALI could be caused by any number of chemicals
and additives that you can find in vape juice. At first glance, vape juice's typical ingredients
seem pretty simple. Most e-liquids contain propylene glycol, which is pretty common in
food and medicine as a solvent. It serves as a base liquid that suspends the nicotine and
flavoring. If the e-liquid doesn't use propylene, it'll probably use vegetable glycerine, a food
thickening agent, which serves the same purpose but creates a denser vapor. With those as a base,
the rest of the ingredients are nicotine and whatever food coloring and flavoring
the manufacturers feel like adding. A lot of people would look at those
ingredients and not see a problem. The kinds of flavorings and additives used in e-liquids
are probably also found in most kinds of soda, so what's the problem? Well, what they're not
taking into account is that even though vapes use electronic atomizers instead of fire,
they still can create carcinogenic substances, even out of non-toxic materials. Since there's
still so little regulation on the ingredients of e-liquids, there's always a risk that two
perfectly innocent elements, when vaporized, could combine together to create something toxic. There
are also plenty of things that, while they're safe to eat, you really shouldn't be inhaling.
Take diacetyl, for example. It's got a scary-sounding name, but it's a fairly
common artificial flavoring used in the US to flavor things like instant coffee, caramel,
fruity drinks, and to add a butter-like flavor to microwave popcorn. It also occurs naturally
in some wines. Sounds pretty tasty, but trust us when we say you do not want this stuff getting
in your lungs. That's because, if it does, you might develop a chronic condition called
bronchiolitis obliterans. This nasty illness is colloquially known as 'popcorn lung' due
to the fact that the first recognized cases of it were all employees at a microwave popcorn
factory in Jasper, Missouri. They spent so much time around diacetyl that they ended
up breathing in enough for it to become toxic. Following the discovery of the disease, a lot of
food companies have switched out diacetyl for less harmful flavor compounds, but since it's still
approved by the FDA, it still finds its way into a few products. As you can probably guess, flavored
vape juice is one of them. A 2016 study published by Environmental Health Perspectives reported
that out of 51 e-liquid flavors, 39 contained diacetyl. Another chemical, cinnamaldehyde, which,
as you can probably guess, is found naturally in cinnamon, has been shown to impair lung function
in a study done by the University of North Carolina. These are just two examples, and given
how inconsistent vape liquid production tends to be, that could just be the tip of the iceberg.
Overwhelmingly, the advice from medical professionals tends to be that if it's not air,
it shouldn't be going in your lungs. This is because it can disrupt the movements of the lungs'
cilia. Cilia are little hair-like structures inside the lungs that move in regular wave
patterns. Their job is to push bacteria and other nasties up and out of the lungs so they can be
coughed out. Cinnamaldehyde, formaldehyde, and a bunch of other chemicals that end in -aldehyde can
have a paralytic effect on the lung cilia, which can take weeks to recover from. During that time,
your lungs are missing a crucial line of defense against infection. Like we said before,
formaldehyde is often added to cigarettes, and the effects of that on the lung cilia of regular
smokers have been well documented. The fact that other aldehydes, even the ones that are safe to
eat, can have the same effect when added to vape liquid and inhaled is a relatively new discovery.
Alright, so now that we've explained the science behind the effects of both, it's time to answer
the question- is vaping really healthier than smoking cigarettes? If you asked, most experts
would probably tell you "yes, but only barely." E-liquid contains less nicotine than your average
cigarette, and it usually doesn't contain any acetone or butane, but that doesn't automatically
make it a healthier alternative. In fact, given that the effects of vaping still aren't fully
understood, it's likely that new information could come out sometime in the future that proves it's
just as bad for you as cigarettes. What about the commonly heard claim
that vaping can help people quit smoking? Unfortunately, despite his hopes that his
invention would make smoking obsolete, Hon Lik's inability to quit himself is pretty typical for a
vaper. Most vapers continue to smoke cigarettes even after they start vaping. Emily Banks from
the Australian National University's Center for Epidemiology has said that based on her research,
there was limited evidence to suggest that vaping can help people quit smoking.
As for secondhand smoke, there's not much research currently on whether or not walking through that
guy's hot-dog-scented vape cloud at the bus stop is going to put you at risk for lung disease,
but a lot of people have theorized that we ought to err on the safe side and restrict vaping in
public the same way we restrict smoking. Ultimately, e-cigarettes are still such a
new technology that it's impossible to know the full extent to which they can be harmful to your
health. The fact of the matter is there's probably no fully safe way to consume nicotine on a regular
basis. When it comes to the question of which one is the least bad, the World Health Organisation's
website probably sums it up best- "Both tobacco products and [e-cigarettes] pose risks to health.
The safest approach is to use neither." Now check out “This is What Happens
to Your Body When You Stop Smoking Tobacco.” or watch this video instead!