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​This Doctor Reckons That Vaping Might Not Be As Good For You As You Think

​This Doctor Reckons That Vaping Might Not Be As Good For You As You Think

Dr Stuart Flint has written a letter to a respected medical journal suggesting that more research needs to be done on the long-term effects.

Chris Ogden

Chris Ogden

Packing in smoking is really hard - but we all know how damaging for you smoking is.

It leads to all sorts of problems and diseases, but going cold turkey when you have serious nicotine cravings is not easy either.

In recent years, many people have switched to e-cigarettes as a method of either replacing their smoking habit, or to get off the nicotine and stop altogether.

Leo DiCaprio vaping
Leo DiCaprio vaping

Credit: PA

However, as they are a pretty new thing there have not been that many long-term studies done on whether they are even better for you at all.

One man, Dr Stuart Flint (a psychologist at Leeds Beckett University) reckons that health officials are being irresponsible in advising people to vape as a method of quitting smoking.

He wrote an open letter to a prestigious medical journal suggesting that it is too soon to call vaping a healthier option.

He wrote: "We need to understand more about the potential health effects of e-cigarettes before they're used as an alternative for stopping smoking.

"There is, at best, very low low-quality evidence of e-cigarettes promoting smoking cessation or reduction, and insufficient data for confident estimation.

Vaping
Vaping

Credit: PA

"Offering e-cigarettes as an alternative to normal cigarettes, alongside evidence-based medicinal products, such as nicotine patches, is premature.

"Preliminary evidence even suggests e-cigarette use may actually have a harmful effect in relevant patient groups.

"The contradictory stance of the UK's expert health organisations is likely to confuse public understanding."

His letter, called 'The irresponsible promotion of e-cigarettes and Swaptober', was published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal.

Around 3,000,000 people use e-cigarettes in the UK alone and in 2015 Public Health England made a landmark statement in which they said that vaping is around 95 percent safer than smoking tobacco.

That doesn't mean that it's completely and definitely safer, however, as longer-term studies have not yet been sufficiently conducted to find out the effects over a sustained period of time.

What is known, though, is that vaping allows you to be free from the toxins, tar, and carbon monoxide of smoking regular cigarettes.

However, a recent study has linked e-cigarettes with problems like heart disease, which kills more people worldwide than anything else.

Smoking kills millions every year and is thought to be the biggest cause of preventable death in the world.

Vaping may not be great for you, but it surely can't be that bad, right?

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Leeds, UK News, Smoking, vaping, Health