How Smoking/Vaping Affects Your Body

Some people believe that vaping is a safe smoking alternative. In fact, many people have switched from smoking traditional cigarettes to vaping. Essentially, the negative effects of traditional smoking are already known to most people. Smoking harms almost every body organ, including the heart. Almost a third of all deaths caused by heart disease is due to smoking as well as secondhand smoke.

Some people switch to vaping with an aim of easing the transition to not smoking at all. But, is vaping really a safe alternative to traditional smoking? Can using e-cigarettes help you quit smoking? These are some of the questions that many people ask when it comes to smoking and vaping.

How Vaping Differs from Smoking

Casual observers and vaping skeptics assume that vaping is the same as smoking. However, there is a significant difference between smoking and vaping. Traditional smoking entails inhaling smoke. Vaping on the other hand entails inhaling the vapor from an e-cigarette. Vapor and smoke are not the same.

Smoke is generated through combustion. That means fire is involved in traditional smoking. Vapor on the other hand is generated through vaporization. When smoking, people take puffs on traditional cigarettes and then exhale smoke. Vaping on the other hand involves taking puffs on vapes and then exhaling vapor. These are devices that resemble traditional cigarettes.

Generally, smoke is formed when liquid, solid, and gaseous aerosol particulates are emitted after combustion. It is formed when autoignition temperature is reached. With smoking, combustion begins when autoignition temperature is reached. Traditional cigarettes are made of tobacco that is chemically treated to ensure faster burning and quick absorption of nicotine. The goal is to ensure faster burning and faster nicotine uptake. For instance, cigarette tobacco has ammonia that accelerates the absorption of nicotine into the brain.

On the other hand, vapor is produced when e-juice is heated to a point where it’s converted to a gaseous state. A vaper inhales this vapor. To vaporize e-liquid, the best vape (Vapingdaily more) heats it up until it reaches the auto ignition temperature. At this point, the liquid becomes a vapor or gas.

The most crucial aspect to note about vaping is that the chemical composition of e-liquid is not changed by vaporization. An obvious example is when you heat water. Water boils to generate steam or vapor. However, the chemical composition of water remains H2O even in gaseous or vapor state. Similarly, no new substances or chemicals are introduced when e-liquid is vaporized.

How Bad is Cigarette Smoke for the Body?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoke affects almost every body organ. It causes many illnesses while reducing a smokers’ health. In fact, inhaling cigarette smoke increases a person’s risk of dying from virtually all causes other than those associated with tobacco use.

Inhaling cigarette smoke affects the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the skin, the eyes, and the reproductive system. It also increases the risk of developing different types of cancer.

Here are some of the major ways smoking affects the body:

• Cigarette smoking affects lung health since a person inhales nicotine and other toxic chemicals. These chemicals increase the risk of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma attack.
• Cigarette smoking can damage blood vessels, blood cells, and the heart. It increases the risk of atheroesclerosis, the heart disease, and peripheral artery disease.
• Cigarette smoke can also damage the reproductive system thereby making conceiving difficult for women. That’s because some chemicals in tobacco affect the levels of hormones. CDC reports that cigarette smoking affects fetus development and pregnancy in different ways.
• Smoking weakens the immune system while increasing the risk of developing type II diabetes.
• Cigarette smoke can also cause vision problems as well as unhealthy hair and skin.

Exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke can increase the risk of ear infections and colds. It can also worsen asthma, raise blood pressure, damage the heart, and reduce cholesterol levels.

How Bad is Vapor For the Body?

Although vaping is possibly less dangerous for your health, it has its negative effects too. Essentially, the best vapes on the market are designed with an aim making a reduced-harm alternative to traditional cigarettes. Nevertheless, some e-juices still have nicotine and other substances that can be harmful to the body. Nicotine is harmful to the body, whether in smoke or vapor form. What’s more, even non-nicotine e-juices have the potential to be problematic. That’s because these juices have substances that can affect the body negatively.

These include:

• Acrolein - This can damage the lungs because it attacks molecules that keep the endothelial cells together.
• Diethylene glycol - This is an anti-freeze ingredient.
• Nitrosamines - This has been associated with cancer.
• Lead - This is a neurotoxin.
• Carbonyls - These include acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, butanol, and acetone. All these are potentially toxic.
• Silicates and heavy metals picked up from the heating element of some types of vapes.
• Propylene glycol - This is a solvent that has the potential to cause lung and eye irritation.

Since vaping produces better odor when compared to traditional cigarettes, some people tend to vape even indoors assuming that vapor from the best vapes is harmless. However, this is not entirely true. Research has shown that though the levels of the aerosols exhaled by vapers are lower than those of the toxicants emitted from tobacco combustion, it is not completely harmless. In fact, vaping can worsen the quality of indoor air by raising the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, aluminum, particulates, and nicotine.

Vaping is Possibly Less Dangerous for Health

When compared to smoking, experts say that vaping is the lesser of the two evils. Though formaldehyde levels are higher, levels of some toxic substances are 9 to 450 times lower when compared to those of regular cigarettes. Vaping entails heating nicotine, flavorings, and other chemicals to generate the inhaled vapor. Tobacco smoke on the other hand has around 7,000 chemicals, majority of which are known to be toxic.

The Bottom Line

Compared to traditional cigarette smoking, vaping is possibly less dangerous. However, the long-term effects of vaping are yet to be known. You also need to use a quality vaping device to avoid picking up silicates and heavy metals when vaping. Therefore, read the best vape reviews before you make your buying decision.