Trying to quit smoking and advised to use electronic cigarettes?

Also known as a personal vaporizer, electronic cigarettes are a battery-powered device that provide inhaled doses of nicotine.

E-cigarettes are being advertised as being much safer than regular cigarettes and I have even seen them being sold in so called “health stores”. The theory is that you can avoid all the harmful effect of traditional cigarettes but still get your “fix” of nicotine.

Sounds like a really good idea but the truth is that the FDA in America has come to the conclusion that e-cigarettes are just as bad, if not worse than traditional cigarettes.

In addition to this, the companies that produce or import them, have admitted that, although they are pretty sure there are no ingredients in e-cigs that can cause cancer, it is a new product and they are not sure of the side effects at this stage.

According to the FDA electronic cigarettes tested by them contained chemical compounds such as diethylene glycol, a chemical found in anti-freeze, which is why they banned the import of them. Below is a list of ingredients found in many popular makes of e-cigarettes:

•Propylene Glycol

•Diethylene Glycol

•Nicotine

•Glycerol

•Tobacco Essence

•Organic Acid

•Butyl valerate

•Isopentyl hexonate

•Laural laurate

•Benzyl benzoate

•Methyl octynicate

•Ethyl heptylate

•Hexyl hexanoate

•Garanyl butyrate

Because of the relatively recent introduction of this technology electronic cigarette legislation and public health investigations are currently pending in many countries. Many countries have, however, decided to either:

•Ban the sale of electronic cigarettes containing nicotine

•Ban the sale of electronic cigarettes altogether by forbidding electronic cigarette sales, importation or advertisement of any kind

•Allowing the use and sale of e-cigarettes but advertising is forbidden.

•Classifying electronic cigarettes containing nicotine as medicinal products.

•The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has classified electronic cigarettes as a drug delivery device and subject to regulation under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). As a result, they require market authorization prior to importation and sale into America.

•The results of the FDA’s latest analysis revealed that although e-cigarettes don’t burn tobacco, the devices contain substances known to be toxic, such as diethylene glycol, a component of antifreeze that proved deadly when it was illegally added to toothpaste. They also contain nitrosamines, known carcinogens found in tobacco smoke. So with all this controversy you can see that the health effects of using electronic cigarettes are currently unknown. Several studies regarding the long-term health effects of inhaling nicotine vapor are currently in progress, though it will be many years before the results are known.

I am not a scientist or doctor but I do care about my health and and yours so I try to limit the number of chemicals that we put on or into our bodies. I have spent hours on the web trying to figure out what all the hype is about regarding electronic cigarettes and, I have to admit, that I have failed miserably!

I no sooner thought that I had found the answer, when another opinion would emerge to contradict what I had found. The “experts” can’t even seem to agree on the two major chemical culprits in e-cigarettes (diethylene glycol and propylene glycol), which of these are actually in electronic cigarettes and which is dangerous.

One opinion did stand out for me and seemed to make a lot of sense and that is the following:

Dr. Steven Schroeder, physician and smoking cessation expert at the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center says.

"Nicotine is not the thing in tobacco smoke that causes cancer, but inhaling pure nicotine may be dangerous. We have no clue what the health effects could be.”

So my advice would be to use an e-cigarette that has a very low amount of nicotine in the essence, and to check the ingredients carefully as they all differ.

One tip here is that the ingredients that are listed first are always in the highest concentration, and those listed last are the lowest concentration.

A further worry that I have is that most of the cigarettes are manufactured in China and that country, unfortunately, has a history of problems with goods laden with unwanted chemicals.

The most recent problem was with baby’s milk that was laced with huge amounts of melamine, and hundreds of infants were ill after ingesting the milk and some died!

We have also had cases of hundreds of dogs dying in South Africa from kidney and renal failure after ingesting dog food that was contaminated with melamine.

The primary use of melamine is in the production of plastics so why would it be added to any foods be they for human or animal consumption? As always the answer is for monetary gain.

Protein levels in food are determined by nitrogen content, and melamine added to food will increase the nitrogen content and therefore make it look as if it has a higher protein content and it will be more desirable.

It is also a known fact that China has dumped large quantities of cheap and sometimes contaminated honey on unsuspecting countries. This is known as “honey laundering” because the honey is basically brought in to a specific country under false pretenses.

Now I’m sure you are asking what all this has to do with e-cigarettes. Well nothing, and at the same time everything because it proves that, when it comes to making money, manufacturers do not care about your health. So back to the electronic cigarettes!

This Is What I Recommend:

•Choose your e-cigarette carefully and buy a product based on quality and performance and not price

•Avoid products that contain Propylene Glycol and Diethylene Glycol

•Choose a product that has a minimal amount of added chemicals

•Most important of all, aim to use the e-cigarette as a means of quitting smoking and not as a substitute

•A conventional cigarette contains in excess of 400 chemicals including arsenic and tar so you really need to stop smoking for the sake of your health

•Drugs such as Chantrix which are sold to help people stop smoking have a tendency to make susceptible users suicidal so that is not a good option

There are many other ways to quit smoking and you need to find the one that suits you. For more facts about smoking look at this page.

Smoking a normal cigarette is definately a way of robbing your system of vitamins so please read all about this subject.