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Comment by aphextron | Hacker News Reader

>E-cigs offer a better path to cessation through better control of the nicotine concentrations than cigs do, and e-cigs are probably one of the least harmful ways to get nicotine (and they're certainly cheaper than gum and patches).

Alternatively, e-cigs have made nicotine consumption cheaper, faster, more convenient, more socially acceptable, and available at much higher concentrations than tobacco. The aggregate being that nicotine addiction could very well increase overall, even if smoking rates drop. Most people don't realize that it's not really the smoke and lung cancer that leads to a majority of smoking deaths. It's the cardiovascular effects of nicotine leading to heart disease. Equating that to caffeine is ridiculous.

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Do you have a source on that claim? I'm pretty sure you're thinking of the cardiovascular effects of smoking, and attributing all of those effects to nicotine, which is incorrect. Everything I've read on the subject indicates that nicotine's role in cardiovascular disease is quite minor.

Sadly...

http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/29/7/1422

Edit: To clarify, there is still no contest at all between potential long term harm from smoking, and massively reduced potential for harm from vaping. Sorry for my lack of responsibility in making that point clearly, or at all.

That source appears to back up what I said.

"Clinical trials of NRT in patients with underlying, stable coronary disease suggest that nicotine does not increase cardiovascular risk. At worst, the risks of NRT are no more than those of cigarette smoking. The risks of NRT for smokers, even for those with underlying cardiovascular disease, are small and are substantially outweighed by the potential benefits of smoking cessation."

NRT: nicotine replacement therapy

Yeah, they discuss various mechanisms by which nicotine could increase risk, but unless I missed something, every time they look for an actual long term impact, there's no demonstrated risk from nicotine alone.

I’m not arguing that vaping isn’t massively better than smoking, but harmless? That’s a high bar. Edit: you’re correct about my irresponsibility, I apologize and have edited my post.

But you were replying to my comment questioning the outrageous claim that smoking's chief risk is cardiovascular disease caused by nicotine. You replied with only a link to a journal article, which could easily, at a glance, appear to back up that claim, although upon further reading, it certainly does not.

Do you see how that's kind of irresponsible?

http://jaha.ahajournals.org/content/6/9/e006579

"Acute exposure to electronic cigarettes with nicotine increases cardiac sympathetic nerve activity in a pattern of heart rate variability that recapitulates the same heart rate variability pattern associated with increased cardiac risk in multiple populations with and without known cardiac disease."

I'm not arguing that e-cigs may not be healthier than smoking tobacco for a current smoker trying to quit. But they are lulling people into a false sense of safety which may be even more dangerous in the long run.

Your claim above is much stronger than what the study suggests (though it does at least point in the same direction).

> Most people don't realize that it's not really the smoke and lung cancer that leads to a majority of smoking deaths. It's the cardiovascular effects of nicotine leading to heart disease.

As described downthread, they keep finding associations that indicate that nicotine/heart disease associations may occur. But when they actually study the association, the association consistently fails to materialize.

I'm quite sure that your claim is flat wrong as stated.

Agreed - most people attribute the effects of smoking to nicotine, when it should be attributed to inhaling the products of combustion.

There are also particular compounds in cured tobacco that are dangerous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco-specific_nitrosamines

I'd have to dig around to find it - but Snuff and chewing tobacco manufacturers actually changed their manufacturing process to being their product nitrosamine levels within the standard europe uses for snus production.

Like the other responder: you took a medical article and tried to make a conclusion about human health that is not really warranted.

"Could be even more dangerous in the long run" is about on the same level of plausibility as vaping actually being healthier than not smoking or vaping. Sure, it's possible, but there's no good reason to think it's true.

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