Tired of all the vape shops in your city? Tired of the stereotypical bro culture staple? Well get ready for a potential healthy uptick in vapers and reduction in smokers because a cancer research team just released a study saying that if every smoker switched to e-cigs and similar devices exclusively, they would live 86.7 million more years in total.
The study “supports a policy strategy that encourages replacing cigarette smoking with vaping to yield substantial life year gains,” says the study’s lead author David Levy, PhD, professor of oncology at Georgetown Lombardi.
Tobacco Control, an international journal that studies the effect of tobacco abuse, published the study by Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. It’s the first study to monitor health outcomes of the big vape switch.
The variables in the study depended on when a subject started smoking, when they stopped smoking and when they switched, projecting both an optimistic outcome and a pessimistic outcome. Under the pessimistic outcome, 1.6 million would add a 20.8 million years to their lives. Under the optimistic outcome, 6.6 million cigarette smokers would add 86.7 million years from switching. So, even in the worst case scenario, vapers live longer (though they look very basic doing so).
“In addition, there would be tremendous health benefits including reduced disease disability to smokers, reduced pain and suffering, and reduced exposure to secondhand smoke,” Levy says. “Even the gloomiest analysis shows a significant gain in years of life if nicotine is obtained from vaping instead of much more deadly amount of toxicants inhaled with cigarette smoke.”
Currently, the office of the Surgeon General's campaign to reduce tobacco use in the U.S. uses legislative strategies such as higher cigarette taxes, no-smoking areas, media campaigns, quitting-support programs and ad restrictions. Levy says the implementation of these programs yields slow results.
“Old policies need to be supplemented with policies that encourage substituting e-cigarettes for the far more deadly cigarettes,” Levy says. “Together, these policies as well as regulating the content of cigarettes have the potential to drastically reduce the massive harms from smoking cigarettes,” which he says is in line with the strategies currently being planned by the FDA.
So get out that vape machine, stock up on vape oil and go out and get some vape friends you can vape with at vape parties. Or, you know, just quit cold turkey.
Shares