People have justified smoking by claiming to use Electronic Cigarettes than normal tobacco ones. Smokers generally feel that instead of consuming regular tobacco from an authentic cigarette, e-cigarettes might not release those vapors to become harmful for them. But the reality sets in, and different discoveries are stating other ideas about a common misconception about e-cigarette.
People who smoke generally forget what they are doing to their teeth and dental health collectively. They know the side effects of smoking on their internal health, such as their lungs’ deteriorating condition, but oral health could be a matter of concern.
Electronic cigarettes may not be such a better alternative for a standard tobacco cigarette; a recent study has proved so, stating that vaping could be equally harmful to oral care as a regular cigarette is. The reason behind this is those chemicals being released out of e-cigarettes could cause more damage to our tooth and lead to diseases such as tooth loss, any gum diseases, or mouth cancer.
E-cigarettes contain a heating element and cartridge that has a liquid known as e-liquid solution. The cigarette’s heating element helps the e-liquid solution vaporize when a person takes a puff from that cigarette. Hence, a user inhales the remaining liquid in the form of vapor. E-cigarettes are battery-operated, so it works on a single click of a button.
Yes, it may be true that an electronic cigarette doesn’t possess the most harmful element in it, which makes a standard cigarette injurious to health- Tobacco. The e-cigarette has another chemical in it, such as nicotine and flavoring chemicals, making it even more hazardous to health.
A professor of environmental medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry reported that nothing still can be confidently claimed about the effects of e-cigarettes on oral health. So it is always the same question going around in the loop that Is vaping safe?
How is E-Cigarette causing gum diseases?
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2015, around 15 percent of the total smoking population was observed to be young high school students who were in the habit of vaping. As they noticed the past statistics, they understood that as the electronic device tends to become more popular during the years from 2011 till 2015, the usage has increased drastically.
Some individuals still prefer regular cigarettes for smoking, and they are addicted to the same. Hene, they do not carry much awareness about the harmful effects of vaping even via e-cigarettes. Professor Irfan Rahman from the University of Rochester, along with his team, conducted an empirical study to fill the void in research and know the exact amount of harm that e-cigarette vaping could cause to the gums.
The team tested tobacco or menthol flavor e-cigarette vapor on the gum tissues of nonsmokers. The result showed that both menthol flavor & tobacco flavor e-cigarette harms the gum cells of nonsmoking individuals. The in-depth- numbers suggested that tobacco-flavored e-cigarette had 13-milligrams of nicotine while the menthol flavor had 13-16 milligrams of nicotine.
It was more than evident to conclude that tobacco smoke may be relatively less harmful to the tissue cell than vaping smoke does. The expert and lead researcher from the group Irfan Rahman stated that nicotine has always been hazardous to the gum tissue, but flavoring the vapor makes it even more excruciatingly dangerous for oral health.
Another Study and Conclusive Understanding
After Professor Irfan Rahman and his team built upon their hypotheses of e-cigarettes, causing gum diseases and proved it with a short experimental analysis, another study was conducted and published in the Journal of Cellular Physiology. It was majorly built after an increased number of mouth cell deaths due to vaping in just a few days.
Another professor Dr. Mahmoud Rouabhia from the Faculty of Dental Medicine at Université Laval in Canada, tried to create a chamber and simulate an atmosphere like inside a moth while vaping. They placed epithelial cells from the mouth in that same chamber. The team also put a liquid inside that chamber, which was almost equivalent to saliva in a human mouth.
After three days of pumping e-cigarette vapor into the chamber for 60 seconds for fifteen minutes in a day, the end-result came as showing that when the epithelial cell was placed under the microscope, it appeared to be completely damaged or dead.
There were unexposed cells whose death rate was 2 percent, but the other cell death kept increasing with increasing days: Day 1; 18 percent, Day 2; 40 percent, and Day 3; 53 percent, respectively. Professor and lead researcher Dr. Mahmoud Rouabhia gave her opinion saying that the mouth’s defensive layer could soon start getting infected, which could lead to inflammation and mouth cancer.
Although the evidence is still not cumulative to understand why e-cigarettes have side effects that cause mouth cells to die, but whatever results have been obtained, they are a matter of concern.
So, it’s time to bust the myth that e-cigarettes are a safer alternative to regular tobacco cigarettes.
