6 ms·

E-cigs shut down hundreds of immune system genes, regular cigs don’t

57 points by edward 11y ago

jacquesm 11y ago
Better still, don't smoke either.
- spdionis 11y ago
  I don't think this is constructive. Smoking is awesome. If only we could find a way to do it without the health problems.
  - elorant 11y ago
    I used to be a smoker for more than a decade, smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. I quit it nine years ago. Didn't miss it for a day. It's an awful habit that takes a toll on your health, hygiene, finance, you name it. And I agree with the parent comment, just don't smoke. I don't think it's awesome, with the notable exception of pipes and some aromatic flavors most tobacco tastes like shit. It's an addiction and that makes many people think that it's awesome and cool and whatever.
    - thaumasiotes 11y ago
      Why do people start?
      - chestervonwinch 11y ago
        Social factors + you catch a pretty mean buzz at first.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - tomhoward 11y ago
        I started (at 17) as a social aid and to deal with adolescent stress. I think both reasons are pretty common. (FWIW it took till age 32 to permanently shake the rotten habit.)
        thaumasiotes 11y ago
        The theory "smoking is all negatives, you have to force yourself to get used to it, but people power through for the social effects" fails miserably at explaining how smoking reached the level of prevalence where social effects could exist in the first place.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        People with mental illness are over-represented in people who smoke. There's some weird to-and-fro stuff happening that they haven't worked out yet. EG: People with schizophrenia smoke a lot. And the hydrocarbons in cigarette smoke interact with anti-psychotic medication, which means people need to take more.
    - spdionis 11y ago
      I argued that the problem is in the health toll, not in smoking itself.
      - tomhoward 11y ago
        Sure, but the reasons people like it are pretty closely linked to the reasons it's bad for you (aside from inhaling poisons, you're hyper-stimulating the nervous system which can lead to burnout, depression, etc), so it's kinda moot to hope to retain the awesome without any of the harm.
        spdionis 11y ago
        The risk of lung/mouth cancer and general other physical effects far outweight the nervous system side effects (which are arguable, i never thought of smoking as a possible factor in depression).
        tomhoward 11y ago
        You're expressing opinions ("arguable") when hard evidence is readily available. Mouth and lung cancers and cardiovascular disease get all the headlines due to their mortality rates and hideous pictures. But there's a whole spectrum of harm that exists well before you get to those extremes, and the evidence is easily found if you care to search for it. See this 1993 study "Influence of cigarette smoking on human autonomic function" [1] In habitual smokers, smoking acutely reduces baseline levels of vagal-cardiac nerve activity and completely resets vagally mediated arterial baroreceptor-cardiac reflex responses. Smoking also reduces muscle sympathetic nerve activity but augments increases of sympathetic activity triggered by brief arterial pressure reductions. This pattern of autonomic changes is likely to influence smokers' responses to acute arterial pressure reductions importantly. Also, "Endocrine Effects of Tobacco Smoking" [2] Over many years a large number of studies have demonstrated that exposure to cigarette smoke produces marked neuroendocrine changes. The effects of nicotine on the hypothalamicpituitary axis (HPA) were first studied by Balfour (1989), who showed that nicotine was a potent activator of the HPA. The basic mechanism of action of nicotine on these systems appears to be contingent on its ability to mimic the effects of acetylcholine at selected central nicotinic acetylcholinergic receptors (Rosecransland & Karin, 1998). There are at least three types of nicotine binding sites in the hypothalamus (Fuxe et al., 1989). Nicotine stimulates neuronal firing directly by acting at the binding sites or indirectly by causing the release of acetylcholine or monoaminergic neurotransmitters (such as dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin) (Pickworth & Fant, 1998). Nicotine can thus affect HPA function through a variety of paths (Rosecransland & Karin, 1998). FYI it's often been observed that dysfunction of the HPA axis is a factor in depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, hypothyroidism and other debilitating illnesses. Eg... One of the most enduring and replicated findings in biological psychiatry is activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in a subset of patients with major depressive disorder. This review will discuss some of these findings and their pertinence to the assessment and treatment of depressed patients. [3] [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8339419/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8339419/ [2] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/496223_2 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/496223_2 [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181180/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181180/
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    What about the whole "smokers make everything smell like smoke for everybody else" problem.
    - u320 11y ago
      That problem is solved by vaping.
      - brahmwg 11y ago
        I don't really agree with that. Some students would often vape behind their laptop in class (to be cool/rebelious, they could easily wait to be outside) and it definitely makes an offensive odor. Non-vapers should have the right to breathe air that isn't polluted with second-hand mystery fumes, especially in doors where ventilation isn't perfect.
  - Htsthbjig 11y ago
    What is so good about smoking? I smoked as a teenager because for some time I was stupid in order to fit with stupid friends. I always found that a brainless bad habit, but it was interesting experience in the sense that I learned that to body could adapt to anything and even get to need it. At first it is the worst thing in the world, it makes you cough but you force yourself into it(showing you "are a man" or whatever stupid reason) and you get to tolerate it, then you need it. You probably could get used to eat shit or suck from a car exhaust pipe too. You can get used even to eat poison, like Rasputin.
    - spdionis 11y ago
      Or you could even get used to drinking strong whiskies! It's called acquired taste and not all of them are bad.
    - bad-joke 11y ago
      Former smoker here. One good thing is the ritual. I never thought of it as "brainless" before but that's a great way of putting it. Smoking is relaxing because you turn off your brain and go through the prescribed motions. When you finish the last motion you go back to life. It's not really relaxing in the chemically induced way (in fact smoking increases anxiety), it's more like meditation. You're allowing yourself to take a break from life for a few minutes. In fact, you're really being /given permission/ to take a break by the external mandate of addiction cravings. You can use this time to reflect, strike up a conversation, examine your surroundings, whatever you want. Another good thing is bonding with smokers. It's a shared activity. The act of smoking serves as either punctuation for a conversation, or the background noise that substitutes conversation. A cigarette can be a prop used for emphasis. Bumming a cigarette is a sort of friendly offering. Most importantly, misery loves company. All smokers know they're addicted. When you smoke with someone else, you're acknowledging each other's weakness and demonstrating acceptance. That's one of the main reasons being a smoker is like being in a big, secret club. It's very romantic. I haven't smoked in a very long time, and I realize now that it was a really stupid and damaging habit, but I do miss parts of it. I've promised myself that I can take up pipe-smoking as a reward for surviving into elderly age.
  - giancarlostoro 11y ago
    I've never smoked cigarettes but cigars I have. They make so many claims about how addictive nicotine is, and yet cigars are supposed to have so much more nicotine than cigarettes, here I am a year without smoking a cigar (maybe I've had one or two in the past year, if anything) and I'm probably not going through what a cigarette smoker goes through, and I've gone times where I've had a cigar daily. Winston Churchill smoked daily and lived to be around 90. So I'm not an "expert" but a lot of what they say doesn't add up with what I've lived and it seems others have lived. Cigarettes aren't pure tobacco usually anyway, they're full of "tobacco sheets", just like Coca Cola isn't as full of sugar as it is "Corn Syrup." My uncle on the other hand smokes daily for quite a few years, and I never see him have the same symptoms other cigarette smokers usually do. The trick is probably the fact we don't inhale the cigar smoke into our lungs, enough of the smoke will get in there regardless.
    - spdionis 11y ago
      In my opinion he addiction doesn't come from nicotine but from the act itself which is very relaxing and pleasant. Btw even if you don't inhale I understand that nicotine gets in your system anyway. Probably in smaller quantities, which is offset by the high amount of nicotine in cigar/pipe tobacco.
      - giancarlostoro 11y ago
        I do it socially really, but again, it's been a year or so since.
      - anexprogrammer 11y ago
        The psychological aspects are habit forming; the social aspects, the ritual etc. Whilst nicotine is undoubtedly addictive, there are other things in tobacco / cigarettes that seem far more addictive. There's also the additional crap added, like chemicals to ensure the cigarette doesn't go out like hand rolled and cigars do, etc. The part I missed most whilst quitting, with the aid of vaping (nicotine replacement gums, patches and inhalers were a waste of time and money for me) was something present in tobacco, but not in ecigs. Vaping never quite replaced that, or felt as nice. The occasional cig I had when out drinking with friends made it quite tempting to relapse - though I didn't. The nicotine withdrawal when I quit vaping was so minor compared to the withdrawal from stopping tobacco that I actually wonder if the various quitting aids are replacing the wrong chemical(s). I am, of course, just an anecdotal data point of one.
  - harel 11y ago
    You'd think we can put people on the moon, land a probe on a comet, create a world wide network of computers yet we cannot make one of the best and oldest human habits healthy....
StavrosK 11y ago
Man, smokers can't win, can they? I'm against smoking because it smells, makes my eyes/throat hurt and is very, very annoying, even from a distance. E-cigs aren't as annoying (they're only annoying if you blow smoke directly on my face), so I don't have a problem with them. If you want to vape, vape, I won't get involved, it's your personal choice.
- berntb 11y ago
  Smokers could just google "home made snus". Nicotine, no cancer, no smoke and no lung damage. (It won't be sold in the EU, because of tobacco company lobbying.)
  - DanBC 11y ago
    > no cancer Snus is linked to mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach and pancreas cancer. Also, cancer of the penis.
    - berntb 11y ago
      Sigh, ok -- a fraction as dangerous as lung cancer to smokers. According to NY Times, even mouth cancer risk increases more for smokers anyway (given modern snus). http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/business/studying-snus-a-smokeless-tobacco-from-sweden.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/business/studying-snus-a-s...
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Hi bertnb - You need to look at your comments in an incognito window or when you're logged out of your account. Many of them are showing [dead]. You might want to email HN to let them know.
- joslin01 11y ago
  Thanks for your permission.
  - StavrosK 11y ago
mirimir 11y ago
Why not just deliver nicotine?
- spdionis 11y ago
  Because it's 90% not about the nicotine.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    I smoked for many years. And yes, there was a lot more to it than the nicotine. The aroma of a good Turkish/Virginia blend. The habitual mechanics of it all. But when it came down to giving it up, it was all about the nicotine. Also, I still miss the attention-focusing effects of nicotine. But it's not worth the addiction.
- bbarn 11y ago
  Gums. Patches. Lozenges. We've had methods of doing just that for decades, and none have had the rampant adoption e-cigarettes have. The short answer is there's a lot more to smoking than nicotine. Social interactions, rituals, etc that the vaping still allows for.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  Because smokers aren't nicotine addicts like heroin users are heroin addicts. One of the big effects of nicotine is that it reinforces habit formation. Smokers have a giant pile of situations where the unthinkingly obvious thing to do is to pull out a cigarette and start smoking it. Reprogramming the brain by replacing the action with "pull out an e-cig and start vaping" is much easier to do than not having a thing to do. If you don't have something else to replace the act with, you're probably going to do something like "think about how much you want a cigarette"
  - mirimir 11y ago
    My underlying point, which I should have made explicit, was that adding all those extra components to e-cigs was a risk. Arguably an unnecessary risk. Except for marketing, of course. Experimentally, it appears that GRAS by oral route doesn't necessarily mean that vaping is safe. But that's not very surprising. Vaping does involve heat, after all. Not burning, but perhaps high enough temperatures for components to react and degrade. Also, GRAS doesn't really mean "safe". It means that people have been using something forever, and it's not acutely toxic. So inertia and vested interests win. Vaping just glycerin and nicotine would arguably be a lot safer, no?
dimitar 11y ago
From the abstract of the quoted paper: Our data confirm that smoking cigarettes causes suppression of several key immune genes in the nasal mucosa. E-cig users showed the same changes in immune genes as cigarette smokers. However, e-cig users also demonstrated suppression of several additional immune genes, suggesting even broader suppressive effects on respiratory mucosal immune responses as compared to cigarette smokers. Looks to me that E-cigs shut down hundreds of immune system genes—regular cigs don’t is misleading.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Looks to me that smoking suppressed 53 genes vaping suppressed 358 that's 100's more indeed. That said their test seems to be limited to ecigs with a specific flavoring compound which replicates the taste of cinnamon; so it's not clear how many types of flavored actually cause this effect.
  - hackercomplex 11y ago
    It sounds to me like this new product category (vaping) needs time to discover the safest compounds to use for flavoring. In other words I suspect that the researchers in this study don't think it's actually the nicoteen which is causing this effect.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      No they don't think it has to do with nicotine (not the discrepancy at least) for this study they more or less focused on cinnamaldehyde which is the compound that gives cinnamon it's flavor (it's also a known irritant and is used to kill mold, fungus and some other things). I would assume that they've focused on cinnamaldehyde because it's most likely a common ingredient in e-liquid not only for the flavor but as it's an irritant (watch the fools doing the "cinnamon challenge" on YouTube for a good example of just how bad it can get) it's quite possibly been added to allot of liquids to increase their throat hit especially for those liquids that are aimed at recent former smokers that really look for that feeling to more closely imitate cigarettes.
GordonS 11y ago
From the article, it seems it's the flavourings that are added to e-cig liquid that seem to be causing the problem. Presumably the effect would be the same if the same flavourings were added to 'real' cigs, but, with the exception of menthol, that isn't commonly done. Why are flavourings so popular with e-cig? Does the liquid (glycerin?) have a foul taste that they are trying to mask?
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  A related/alternative question would be why flavorings are unpopular with regular cigarettes. (The answer, at least in the US, is that it's been made illegal, as a youth antismoking measure.)
- bbarn 11y ago
  The flavors make it easier to switch. Cigarette smoke stinks, most people agree, and switching from that to something with a pleasant fruit smell is pretty acceptable for a partner/spouse/friend.
- mml 11y ago
  I smoked for 20y, switched to ecigs to kick it. I treat ecigs as a medication, no flavoring. Having tried a few flavors, I find flavorless to be by far the least offensive, to me, as well as the people around me. I find this constant drumbeat of "ecigs will kill everyone" disingenuous at best.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Why do you think the people stating that ecigs are still harmful are being misleading?
    - mapt 11y ago
      It's as if we switched, in a culture of frequent duels, from dueling with pistols to the death, to dueling with new, fairly safe boxing gloves to the submission. "But they cause concussions", you say. "But the children will be more likely to take up dueling", you say. "We should ban them". "Look, we banned putting stickers on guns long ago so they wouldn't appear to children, but they're putting stickers on boxing gloves now! The horror!" "But look, the problem is this obscene need to fight each other over honor. It's a problem of the patriarchy. We should publish hundreds of studies showing this while glancing furtively at the 'ban boxing' folks" The death toll from smoking rivals the death toll from all the wars in the 20th century. Even after this was made clear, people found themselves unable to quit, smoking until they die. The evidence suggests that e-cigs are somewhere in the vicinity of coffee as a danger to your health. They are incomparably safer, and if just one percent of e-cig users began using them in order to quit smoking, that's worth it. This study is completely uncontrolled, and being promoted as a hit piece. "Environment influences gene expression" is not novel. If they want to impress on me that there is anything of any importance whatsoever, they need to do the same gene expression tests on groups who ate hummus vs who did not eat hummus, groups who took a daily walk vs groups who did not, groups who drink tea vs groups who did not.
wineisfine 11y ago
Btw ecigs is big business. Costs nothing to produce, taxed as a regular product... Affiliate fees up to 40% commission etc Philip Morris bought a big ecig producer etc...
- givinguflac 11y ago
  They bought a "big" and extremely shitty company, to sell at gas stations everywhere so people will go back to cigs. The Ecig products they sell are just awful.
edcastro 11y ago
I used to smoke 3 packs of cigarretes a day, some days I couldn't even properly breathe. I tried everything, the only thing that got me out was vaping. Nowadays I can't even touch a cigarrete anymore because it tastes like crap. From what I've seen so far, all of those studies always find the same thing, diacetyl is bad for you when inhaled. This only applies to some flavors and most of the "top" vaping juice vendors are aware of it and do not use juices that have diacetyl on it anymore.
Balgair 11y ago
If there are any HNers reading that would like to stop smoking, here is a link to a good resource and community to start on that road: https://www.reddit.com/r/stopsmoking https://www.reddit.com/r/stopsmoking I know it's not the best site, nor is the path to quitting an easy one, but it is something. The thing that I see helps most is a daily reminder and a damn good reason to stop (kids, new boyfriend, cancer, savings, etc). Find that, and it is a bit easier to quit. God speed.
gospelwut 11y ago
https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2016/webprogram/Paper16208.html https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2016/webprogram/Paper16208.html "[...] specifically focusing on cinnamon-flavored e-cigarettes containing the flavoring agent cinnamaldehyde. Our data indicate that cinnamaldehyde-containing e-liquids have a significant negative effect on epithelial cell physiology and barrier function. In addition, cinnamaldehyde-containing e-liquids compromise the immune function of key respiratory immune cells, such as macrophages, Natural Killer Cells, and neutrophils. Using translational human in vitro and in vivo approaches, our studies will ascertain whether exposure to e-cigs, with a specific focus on cinnamon-flavored e-liquids/e-cigs, have immune suppressive effects on the respiratory mucosa."

57 points by edward 11y ago

jacquesm 11y ago

Better still, don't smoke either.

spdionis 11y ago
I don't think this is constructive. Smoking is awesome. If only we could find a way to do it without the health problems.
- elorant 11y ago
  I used to be a smoker for more than a decade, smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. I quit it nine years ago. Didn't miss it for a day. It's an awful habit that takes a toll on your health, hygiene, finance, you name it. And I agree with the parent comment, just don't smoke. I don't think it's awesome, with the notable exception of pipes and some aromatic flavors most tobacco tastes like shit. It's an addiction and that makes many people think that it's awesome and cool and whatever.
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    Why do people start?
    - chestervonwinch 11y ago
      Social factors + you catch a pretty mean buzz at first.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - tomhoward 11y ago
      I started (at 17) as a social aid and to deal with adolescent stress. I think both reasons are pretty common. (FWIW it took till age 32 to permanently shake the rotten habit.)
      - thaumasiotes 11y ago
        The theory "smoking is all negatives, you have to force yourself to get used to it, but people power through for the social effects" fails miserably at explaining how smoking reached the level of prevalence where social effects could exist in the first place.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      People with mental illness are over-represented in people who smoke. There's some weird to-and-fro stuff happening that they haven't worked out yet. EG: People with schizophrenia smoke a lot. And the hydrocarbons in cigarette smoke interact with anti-psychotic medication, which means people need to take more.
  - spdionis 11y ago
    I argued that the problem is in the health toll, not in smoking itself.
    - tomhoward 11y ago
      Sure, but the reasons people like it are pretty closely linked to the reasons it's bad for you (aside from inhaling poisons, you're hyper-stimulating the nervous system which can lead to burnout, depression, etc), so it's kinda moot to hope to retain the awesome without any of the harm.
      - spdionis 11y ago
        The risk of lung/mouth cancer and general other physical effects far outweight the nervous system side effects (which are arguable, i never thought of smoking as a possible factor in depression).
        tomhoward 11y ago
        You're expressing opinions ("arguable") when hard evidence is readily available. Mouth and lung cancers and cardiovascular disease get all the headlines due to their mortality rates and hideous pictures. But there's a whole spectrum of harm that exists well before you get to those extremes, and the evidence is easily found if you care to search for it. See this 1993 study "Influence of cigarette smoking on human autonomic function" [1] In habitual smokers, smoking acutely reduces baseline levels of vagal-cardiac nerve activity and completely resets vagally mediated arterial baroreceptor-cardiac reflex responses. Smoking also reduces muscle sympathetic nerve activity but augments increases of sympathetic activity triggered by brief arterial pressure reductions. This pattern of autonomic changes is likely to influence smokers' responses to acute arterial pressure reductions importantly. Also, "Endocrine Effects of Tobacco Smoking" [2] Over many years a large number of studies have demonstrated that exposure to cigarette smoke produces marked neuroendocrine changes. The effects of nicotine on the hypothalamicpituitary axis (HPA) were first studied by Balfour (1989), who showed that nicotine was a potent activator of the HPA. The basic mechanism of action of nicotine on these systems appears to be contingent on its ability to mimic the effects of acetylcholine at selected central nicotinic acetylcholinergic receptors (Rosecransland & Karin, 1998). There are at least three types of nicotine binding sites in the hypothalamus (Fuxe et al., 1989). Nicotine stimulates neuronal firing directly by acting at the binding sites or indirectly by causing the release of acetylcholine or monoaminergic neurotransmitters (such as dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin) (Pickworth & Fant, 1998). Nicotine can thus affect HPA function through a variety of paths (Rosecransland & Karin, 1998). FYI it's often been observed that dysfunction of the HPA axis is a factor in depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, hypothyroidism and other debilitating illnesses. Eg... One of the most enduring and replicated findings in biological psychiatry is activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in a subset of patients with major depressive disorder. This review will discuss some of these findings and their pertinence to the assessment and treatment of depressed patients. [3] [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8339419/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8339419/ [2] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/496223_2 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/496223_2 [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181180/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181180/
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  What about the whole "smokers make everything smell like smoke for everybody else" problem.
  - u320 11y ago
    That problem is solved by vaping.
    - brahmwg 11y ago
      I don't really agree with that. Some students would often vape behind their laptop in class (to be cool/rebelious, they could easily wait to be outside) and it definitely makes an offensive odor. Non-vapers should have the right to breathe air that isn't polluted with second-hand mystery fumes, especially in doors where ventilation isn't perfect.
- Htsthbjig 11y ago
  What is so good about smoking? I smoked as a teenager because for some time I was stupid in order to fit with stupid friends. I always found that a brainless bad habit, but it was interesting experience in the sense that I learned that to body could adapt to anything and even get to need it. At first it is the worst thing in the world, it makes you cough but you force yourself into it(showing you "are a man" or whatever stupid reason) and you get to tolerate it, then you need it. You probably could get used to eat shit or suck from a car exhaust pipe too. You can get used even to eat poison, like Rasputin.
  - spdionis 11y ago
    Or you could even get used to drinking strong whiskies! It's called acquired taste and not all of them are bad.
  - bad-joke 11y ago
    Former smoker here. One good thing is the ritual. I never thought of it as "brainless" before but that's a great way of putting it. Smoking is relaxing because you turn off your brain and go through the prescribed motions. When you finish the last motion you go back to life. It's not really relaxing in the chemically induced way (in fact smoking increases anxiety), it's more like meditation. You're allowing yourself to take a break from life for a few minutes. In fact, you're really being /given permission/ to take a break by the external mandate of addiction cravings. You can use this time to reflect, strike up a conversation, examine your surroundings, whatever you want. Another good thing is bonding with smokers. It's a shared activity. The act of smoking serves as either punctuation for a conversation, or the background noise that substitutes conversation. A cigarette can be a prop used for emphasis. Bumming a cigarette is a sort of friendly offering. Most importantly, misery loves company. All smokers know they're addicted. When you smoke with someone else, you're acknowledging each other's weakness and demonstrating acceptance. That's one of the main reasons being a smoker is like being in a big, secret club. It's very romantic. I haven't smoked in a very long time, and I realize now that it was a really stupid and damaging habit, but I do miss parts of it. I've promised myself that I can take up pipe-smoking as a reward for surviving into elderly age.
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  I've never smoked cigarettes but cigars I have. They make so many claims about how addictive nicotine is, and yet cigars are supposed to have so much more nicotine than cigarettes, here I am a year without smoking a cigar (maybe I've had one or two in the past year, if anything) and I'm probably not going through what a cigarette smoker goes through, and I've gone times where I've had a cigar daily. Winston Churchill smoked daily and lived to be around 90. So I'm not an "expert" but a lot of what they say doesn't add up with what I've lived and it seems others have lived. Cigarettes aren't pure tobacco usually anyway, they're full of "tobacco sheets", just like Coca Cola isn't as full of sugar as it is "Corn Syrup." My uncle on the other hand smokes daily for quite a few years, and I never see him have the same symptoms other cigarette smokers usually do. The trick is probably the fact we don't inhale the cigar smoke into our lungs, enough of the smoke will get in there regardless.
  - spdionis 11y ago
    In my opinion he addiction doesn't come from nicotine but from the act itself which is very relaxing and pleasant. Btw even if you don't inhale I understand that nicotine gets in your system anyway. Probably in smaller quantities, which is offset by the high amount of nicotine in cigar/pipe tobacco.
    - giancarlostoro 11y ago
      I do it socially really, but again, it's been a year or so since.
    - anexprogrammer 11y ago
      The psychological aspects are habit forming; the social aspects, the ritual etc. Whilst nicotine is undoubtedly addictive, there are other things in tobacco / cigarettes that seem far more addictive. There's also the additional crap added, like chemicals to ensure the cigarette doesn't go out like hand rolled and cigars do, etc. The part I missed most whilst quitting, with the aid of vaping (nicotine replacement gums, patches and inhalers were a waste of time and money for me) was something present in tobacco, but not in ecigs. Vaping never quite replaced that, or felt as nice. The occasional cig I had when out drinking with friends made it quite tempting to relapse - though I didn't. The nicotine withdrawal when I quit vaping was so minor compared to the withdrawal from stopping tobacco that I actually wonder if the various quitting aids are replacing the wrong chemical(s). I am, of course, just an anecdotal data point of one.
- harel 11y ago
  You'd think we can put people on the moon, land a probe on a comet, create a world wide network of computers yet we cannot make one of the best and oldest human habits healthy....

StavrosK 11y ago

Man, smokers can't win, can they? I'm against smoking because it smells, makes my eyes/throat hurt and is very, very annoying, even from a distance. E-cigs aren't as annoying (they're only annoying if you blow smoke directly on my face), so I don't have a problem with them. If you want to vape, vape, I won't get involved, it's your personal choice.

berntb 11y ago
Smokers could just google "home made snus". Nicotine, no cancer, no smoke and no lung damage. (It won't be sold in the EU, because of tobacco company lobbying.)
- DanBC 11y ago
  > no cancer Snus is linked to mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach and pancreas cancer. Also, cancer of the penis.
  - berntb 11y ago
    Sigh, ok -- a fraction as dangerous as lung cancer to smokers. According to NY Times, even mouth cancer risk increases more for smokers anyway (given modern snus). http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/business/studying-snus-a-smokeless-tobacco-from-sweden.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/business/studying-snus-a-s...
- DanBC 11y ago
  Hi bertnb - You need to look at your comments in an incognito window or when you're logged out of your account. Many of them are showing [dead]. You might want to email HN to let them know.
joslin01 11y ago
Thanks for your permission.
- StavrosK 11y ago

mirimir 11y ago

Why not just deliver nicotine?

spdionis 11y ago
Because it's 90% not about the nicotine.
- mirimir 11y ago
  I smoked for many years. And yes, there was a lot more to it than the nicotine. The aroma of a good Turkish/Virginia blend. The habitual mechanics of it all. But when it came down to giving it up, it was all about the nicotine. Also, I still miss the attention-focusing effects of nicotine. But it's not worth the addiction.
bbarn 11y ago
Gums. Patches. Lozenges. We've had methods of doing just that for decades, and none have had the rampant adoption e-cigarettes have. The short answer is there's a lot more to smoking than nicotine. Social interactions, rituals, etc that the vaping still allows for.
ThrustVectoring 11y ago
Because smokers aren't nicotine addicts like heroin users are heroin addicts. One of the big effects of nicotine is that it reinforces habit formation. Smokers have a giant pile of situations where the unthinkingly obvious thing to do is to pull out a cigarette and start smoking it. Reprogramming the brain by replacing the action with "pull out an e-cig and start vaping" is much easier to do than not having a thing to do. If you don't have something else to replace the act with, you're probably going to do something like "think about how much you want a cigarette"
- mirimir 11y ago
  My underlying point, which I should have made explicit, was that adding all those extra components to e-cigs was a risk. Arguably an unnecessary risk. Except for marketing, of course. Experimentally, it appears that GRAS by oral route doesn't necessarily mean that vaping is safe. But that's not very surprising. Vaping does involve heat, after all. Not burning, but perhaps high enough temperatures for components to react and degrade. Also, GRAS doesn't really mean "safe". It means that people have been using something forever, and it's not acutely toxic. So inertia and vested interests win. Vaping just glycerin and nicotine would arguably be a lot safer, no?

dimitar 11y ago

From the abstract of the quoted paper: Our data confirm that smoking cigarettes causes suppression of several key immune genes in the nasal mucosa. E-cig users showed the same changes in immune genes as cigarette smokers. However, e-cig users also demonstrated suppression of several additional immune genes, suggesting even broader suppressive effects on respiratory mucosal immune responses as compared to cigarette smokers. Looks to me that E-cigs shut down hundreds of immune system genes—regular cigs don’t is misleading.

dogma1138 11y ago
Looks to me that smoking suppressed 53 genes vaping suppressed 358 that's 100's more indeed. That said their test seems to be limited to ecigs with a specific flavoring compound which replicates the taste of cinnamon; so it's not clear how many types of flavored actually cause this effect.
- hackercomplex 11y ago
  It sounds to me like this new product category (vaping) needs time to discover the safest compounds to use for flavoring. In other words I suspect that the researchers in this study don't think it's actually the nicoteen which is causing this effect.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    No they don't think it has to do with nicotine (not the discrepancy at least) for this study they more or less focused on cinnamaldehyde which is the compound that gives cinnamon it's flavor (it's also a known irritant and is used to kill mold, fungus and some other things). I would assume that they've focused on cinnamaldehyde because it's most likely a common ingredient in e-liquid not only for the flavor but as it's an irritant (watch the fools doing the "cinnamon challenge" on YouTube for a good example of just how bad it can get) it's quite possibly been added to allot of liquids to increase their throat hit especially for those liquids that are aimed at recent former smokers that really look for that feeling to more closely imitate cigarettes.

GordonS 11y ago

From the article, it seems it's the flavourings that are added to e-cig liquid that seem to be causing the problem. Presumably the effect would be the same if the same flavourings were added to 'real' cigs, but, with the exception of menthol, that isn't commonly done. Why are flavourings so popular with e-cig? Does the liquid (glycerin?) have a foul taste that they are trying to mask?

fennecfoxen 11y ago
A related/alternative question would be why flavorings are unpopular with regular cigarettes. (The answer, at least in the US, is that it's been made illegal, as a youth antismoking measure.)
bbarn 11y ago
The flavors make it easier to switch. Cigarette smoke stinks, most people agree, and switching from that to something with a pleasant fruit smell is pretty acceptable for a partner/spouse/friend.
mml 11y ago
I smoked for 20y, switched to ecigs to kick it. I treat ecigs as a medication, no flavoring. Having tried a few flavors, I find flavorless to be by far the least offensive, to me, as well as the people around me. I find this constant drumbeat of "ecigs will kill everyone" disingenuous at best.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Why do you think the people stating that ecigs are still harmful are being misleading?
  - mapt 11y ago
    It's as if we switched, in a culture of frequent duels, from dueling with pistols to the death, to dueling with new, fairly safe boxing gloves to the submission. "But they cause concussions", you say. "But the children will be more likely to take up dueling", you say. "We should ban them". "Look, we banned putting stickers on guns long ago so they wouldn't appear to children, but they're putting stickers on boxing gloves now! The horror!" "But look, the problem is this obscene need to fight each other over honor. It's a problem of the patriarchy. We should publish hundreds of studies showing this while glancing furtively at the 'ban boxing' folks" The death toll from smoking rivals the death toll from all the wars in the 20th century. Even after this was made clear, people found themselves unable to quit, smoking until they die. The evidence suggests that e-cigs are somewhere in the vicinity of coffee as a danger to your health. They are incomparably safer, and if just one percent of e-cig users began using them in order to quit smoking, that's worth it. This study is completely uncontrolled, and being promoted as a hit piece. "Environment influences gene expression" is not novel. If they want to impress on me that there is anything of any importance whatsoever, they need to do the same gene expression tests on groups who ate hummus vs who did not eat hummus, groups who took a daily walk vs groups who did not, groups who drink tea vs groups who did not.

wineisfine 11y ago

Btw ecigs is big business. Costs nothing to produce, taxed as a regular product... Affiliate fees up to 40% commission etc Philip Morris bought a big ecig producer etc...

givinguflac 11y ago
They bought a "big" and extremely shitty company, to sell at gas stations everywhere so people will go back to cigs. The Ecig products they sell are just awful.

edcastro 11y ago

I used to smoke 3 packs of cigarretes a day, some days I couldn't even properly breathe. I tried everything, the only thing that got me out was vaping. Nowadays I can't even touch a cigarrete anymore because it tastes like crap. From what I've seen so far, all of those studies always find the same thing, diacetyl is bad for you when inhaled. This only applies to some flavors and most of the "top" vaping juice vendors are aware of it and do not use juices that have diacetyl on it anymore.

Balgair 11y ago

If there are any HNers reading that would like to stop smoking, here is a link to a good resource and community to start on that road: https://www.reddit.com/r/stopsmoking https://www.reddit.com/r/stopsmoking I know it's not the best site, nor is the path to quitting an easy one, but it is something. The thing that I see helps most is a daily reminder and a damn good reason to stop (kids, new boyfriend, cancer, savings, etc). Find that, and it is a bit easier to quit. God speed.

gospelwut 11y ago

https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2016/webprogram/Paper16208.html https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2016/webprogram/Paper16208.html "[...] specifically focusing on cinnamon-flavored e-cigarettes containing the flavoring agent cinnamaldehyde. Our data indicate that cinnamaldehyde-containing e-liquids have a significant negative effect on epithelial cell physiology and barrier function. In addition, cinnamaldehyde-containing e-liquids compromise the immune function of key respiratory immune cells, such as macrophages, Natural Killer Cells, and neutrophils. Using translational human in vitro and in vivo approaches, our studies will ascertain whether exposure to e-cigs, with a specific focus on cinnamon-flavored e-liquids/e-cigs, have immune suppressive effects on the respiratory mucosa."