E-Cigs mentioned on Bing and other sites today

[Ankheperure]

I was checking my email and reading various news stories today and it appears that e-cigs are getting much more attention lately. On the msn page, there is a story for "healthy smoking alternatives" that include cigar smoking of all things..(joke) and then a link to the bing search for e cigs at the bottom of the page:

Cigars Pipes No 'Healthy' Alternative to Cigarettes - MSN Health & Fitness - Quit Smoking


Then, while looking at the "Eat this, not that" web page, I found a mention to e cigs and PG:

Check out the Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty, for instance. It seems harmless enough; the only additions, after all, are “coffee syrup” and “coffee toffee pieces.” The problem is that those two additions collectively contain 25 extra ingredients, seven of which are sugars and three of which are oils. And get this: Rather than a classic syrup, the “coffee syrup” would more accurately be described as a blend of water, high-fructose corn syrup, and propylene glycol, a laxative chemical that’s used as an emulsifier in food and a filler in electronic cigarettes. Of all 10 ingredients it takes to make the syrup, coffee doesn’t show up until near the end, eight items down the list.
For more examples of over-the-top, sugar-packed cups like this, feast your eyes on our astonishing list of the 20 Worst Drinks in America.

I don't know if it's a laxative chemical, but I would attest that I have not noticed any "laxative" effects from vaping. Go check out the other stories listed there as well.

[Thulium]

I don't claim to know if cigar or pipe smoking is healthier than cigarettes or not, but some of the alleged "science" in that article just doesn't make sense to me.

To determine whether smoke was inhaled, the researchers measured blood levels of cotinine, a byproduct of metabolized nicotine.
Among pipe or cigar users, they found cotinine levels lower than those produced by cigarette smoking but nevertheless significant.
"For pipe smoking, it was 20 percent compared to cigarette smoking, and for cigars it was 10 percent," Barr said. "Less, but still quite considerable."

How does this make sense? They measured the presence of nicotine to determine if people were inhaling?



I suppose the fact that cigar and pipe smokers are absorbing less nicotine could indicate that they may not be inhaling, but in reality this is an attempt to equate nicotine with smoking.

The effect of smoking on breathing ability was measured by spirometry, a lung function test in which people blow into a tube to determine the maximum amount of air they can move in one second.

Pipe or cigar smokers had more than twice the incidence of airway obstruction than nonsmokers, and the degree of obstruction increased with the amount of smoking, the researchers found.

This is a bit better in that they are confirming airway obstruction from smoking, which would make sense that a pipe or cigar smoker might inhale some of their own sidestream smoke even if they aren't directly inhaling.... But there is no comparative data! Do pipe or cigar smokers have more or less incidence of airway obstruction than cigarette smokers? Isn't that what this article claims?

The study was done because there has been a noticeable shift away from cigarettes to pipes and cigars, partly because of health warnings, partly because of heavy taxes on cigarettes, Barr said.
"There haven't been good data in the United States from a large study showing that first, people who smoke cigars and pipes inhale the smoke and second, that on a long-term basis they have damage to their lungs," he said.

It looks like that is still true.

[Ankheperure]

Most of it didn't make any sense to me, either. Nonsense.

I would rather vape any day.