Archive for the ‘benefits/advantages of the e-cigarette’ Category

Few studies investigated the health benefits of the electronic cigarette (or e-cigarette). Let’s hope medical researchers get to it soon. For now, it’s up to users like me to say how quitting smoking and switching to the electronic cigarette affected their health.

Health Benefits of the Electronic Cigarette Same as When You Quit Smoking

To my surprise, I felt healthier one week after I started using my first electronic cigarette—I switched five months ago. My research showed that the health benefits of switching to the electronic cigarette, the ones I felt, are similar to those of people who quit smoking altogether.

No More Smoker’s Cough and Phlegm

The first thing I noticed is that my smoker’s cough disappeared. The cough didn’t bother me as much as the phlegm: before I quit smoking conventional cigarettes, every night, minutes after I went to bed, I started choking on phlegm. I’m really glad the phlegm went away.

Sense of Smell Comes Back

My sense of smell came back. A friend of mine who quit smoking told me it was completely different when you can smell the smells and taste the tastes, but it’s more impressive when you feel it yourself. Today the smell of freshly cut grass and the blooming trees on our street made me feel like I’m in one of those stores that sell scented candles.

Better Physical Stamina and Cardio

My physical stamina and lung capacity increased. On my elliptical machine, I do the same 30-40 minute exercise, one cardio zone up, and I don’t get short on breath as fast as before. I do the whole exercise with ease.

No More Wheezing and Tightness in Chest

I stopped wheezing and I no longer feel tight in the chest—the most important effects that the electronic cigarette had on my health. It’s a great feeling being able to breathe freely. In fact, the wheezing and the tightness in my chest were the main reasons why I wanted to try the electronic cigarette.

e-cigarttes vs hot (regular cigarettes)

Asking a heavy smoker to reduce smoking is like asking a person with a sweet tooth to reduce desserts.   The good news for heavy smokers is that, for the first time, reducing hot smoking is possible thanks to e-cigarettes.

Before my experience with e-cigarettes, I thought it was impossible for  a heavy smoker to switch from one pack of cigarettes a day to, say, two cigarettes or a cigar a day.  I quit smoking cigarettes altogether because I switched to smoking e-cigarettes. Now, once in a while I have a cigar before bed.  Smoking a cigar occasionally is a great reduction in hot smoking; compare it with the pack, pack and a half,  a day  that I used to have before switching to e-cigarettes.

Conventional cigarettes ( regular cigarettes) are the fast food of smoking: you can have one and you forget you had it until you reach for another automatically. It’s so easy to slip and start chain-smoking. I’m happy I’m no longer addicted to them.

Smoking e-cigarettes, or e-smoking, is the closest thing to conventional smoking. Smokers  know that nicotine gums and patches are not very effective, especially the nicotine patches because they have nothing to do with the sacred act of smoking. Chewing gums at least keep your mouth busy, but still, it’s not the same.

Smoking e-cigarettes has a great advantage over other ways to quit conventional smoking. The reason is that both experiences, e-smoking and conventional smoking, are very similar—you’re taking time alone doing something, you’re holding a cigarette between your fingers, and you’re smoking, and the most important is the act of smoking.

When you smoke an e-cigarette you feel many of the same pleasant and unpleasant sensations of real smoking. And although you inhale water vapor instead of smoke, the taste of good smoke juice is like that of cigarette smoke and, sometimes, even better.

The great similarity between smoking and e-smoking is why I never went back to smoking real cigarettes, even after I accepted a cigarette by a friend at Starbucks when I hadn’t smoked a real cigarette for three months. The real cigarette didn’t taste as good as my e-cigarette. It was too bitter.

E-smoking Doesn’t Produce Cancer-Causing Substances Found in Traditional Smoking

There is a good reason why e-cigarettes are safer than regular cigarettes: In the United States, traditional cigarette manufacturers use 599 additives approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Yet, when burned-these safe additives change into harmful cancer-causing chemicals. Some of these chemicals are:

Arsenic-cases cancer, damages the heart and the blood vessels

Benzene-linked to leukemia and other forms of cancer

Cadmium-causes cancer and damages the arteries and kidneys

Formaldehyde-linked to cancer of nasal sinuses and leukemia

Tar-a mixture of harmful chemicals that builds in the lungs

E-cigarettes don’t contain such substances-thus, the health risks related to e-smoking, if any, are limited.

Caution: E-cigarettes Not Yet Officially Approved

Although the argument in favor of e-cigarettes is strong, the World Health Organization (WHO) hasn’t yet approved e-smoking: “WHO knows of no evidentiary basis for the marketers’ claim that the electronic cigarette helps people quit smoking.”

“Indeed, as far as WHO is aware, no rigorous, peer-reviewed studies have been conducted showing that the electronic cigarette is a safe and effective nicotine replacement therapy.”