Vapor of electronic cigarettes will save 6.6 million lives of smokers in the United States, although it causes mutations in DNA

In the smoke of conventional cigarettes, in addition to nicotine and its derivatives, nitrosamines contain more than 7,000 other products of incomplete combustion, 70 of which are known carcinogens, plus carbon monoxide (CO), other irritants and allergens. According to the study, cigarettes with tobacco sooner or later lead to the premature death of more than 50% of smokers. In addition, this smoke has a very unpleasant smell. Thus, ordinary cigarettes at the same time are extremely harmful for the smoker and unpleasant for others.

It is not surprising that electronic cigarettes for this reason are positioned as an alternative - less harmful for a smoker (bather) and not so unpleasant for people around. In electronic cigarettes, nicotine is dissolved in relatively safe organic solvents such as glycerin and propylene glycol, and then evaporates with solvents under the influence of controlled electronic heating.

Although e-cigarettes are much safer than normal, unfortunately, as recent studies show, they cannot be called completely safe.

The study was conducted by specialists from the Department of Environmental Medicine and the Department of Urology of the New York University School of Medicine. They set the task to compare the harm from conventional and electronic cigarettes, that is, to what extent the latter are safer than the first. If a person can not completely stop smoking, then scientists recommend at least minimize the harm.

“Studies show that if the majority of current American smokers switch to electronic cigarettes over the next 10 years, the number of premature deaths will decrease by 6.6 million, and the number of lost years of life will decrease by 86.7 million years,” says David Abrams (David Abrams), PhD, professor of social and behavioral sciences at the College of Global Public Health, New York University and lead author of scientific work. - It would be safest to quit smoking, and better still never start. But the approach to minimizing harm acknowledges that the requirement of absolute perfection is often counterproductive and when harmful behavior cannot be abandoned, we can still drastically reduce adverse health effects. ”

Contrary to common misconception, nicotine itself causes minimal harm to human health, compared to carbon monoxide and 70 carcinogens in tobacco smoke. When switching to e-cigarettes, nicotine chewing gum or patches, there is a cardinal reduction in the harm to health, because there are no these harmful substances, scientists say.

The authors of scientific work call for abandoning the misconceptions that soaring is more harmful than smoking tobacco. In fact, the level of NNAL in the blood of bathers is 97% less than that of tobacco smokers. But still it can not be compared with a complete cessation of smoking, because non-smokers NNAL level significantly lower.

NNAL is 4- (methylnitrosamino) -1- (3-pyridyl) -1-butanol, one of the isoforms of the nicotin-derived nitrosamine-ketone (4- (methylnitrosamino) -1- (3-pyridyl) -1-butanone), a carcinogen, which is associated with the modification of DNA and proteins and, therefore, the occurrence of cancer.

Scientists have shown that nicotine nitrosis occurs in the human body. Instead of measuring the level of NNAL in the blood, they examined the level of DNA damage associated. They found that DNA damage is still noticeable, so NNAL measurements in the blood do not give a complete picture of the appearance of carcinogens in the bathers. Thus, the consumption of nicotine from steam still increases the concentration of carcinogen and significantly increases the risk of cancer. Consequently, even electronic cigarettes should be recognized as a carcinogenic product.

The illustration shows the presence of γ-OH-PdG and O ⁶ -medG mutations that appear under the influence of vapor electronic cigarettes (ECS) in the lungs, bladder, liver and heart of the mouse. In all these organs, except the liver, an increase in the level of mutations was found.



Simultaneously, a pair of electronic cigarettes reduces the activity of XPC and OGG1 / 2 proteins in mice, which are responsible for the detection and repair of DNA (see illustration below).



The scientific article was published on January 29, 2018 in the journal Annual Review of Public Health (doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1718185115, pdf ).