Get Easy Health Digest™ in your inbox and don’t miss a thing when you subscribe today. Plus, get the free bonus report, Mother Nature’s Tips, Tricks and Remedies for Cholesterol, Blood Pressure & Blood Sugar as my way of saying welcome to the community!
Vaping leads to a mouthful of disease-causing bacteria
The year my younger sister was born, my dad quit smoking. It was right around the time the Surgeon General was issuing dire warnings to smokers, and Dad decided he wanted to live to see his daughters grow up.
His method of choice was to eat prunes, then suck on the pits and leave them scattered around the house for my mother to find. It drove her crazy!
But he did it. A 15+ year smoking habit was finished.
If Dad were around today and wanted to quit smoking, he’d have other things at his disposal, like nicotine gum and patches.
And e-cigarettes.
You may be under the impression that vaping is a safe way to quit cigarettes, certainly preferable to smoking.
You couldn’t be more wrong.
This ‘safer’ habit causes stress to your brain cells, ending in cell damage and cell death. Fewer brain cells means more brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
And smoking e-cigarettes is practically as bad for your heart as smoking real cigarettes.
Research continues to uncover more and more ways that vaping is as bad for you as smoking actual cigarettes, possibly even worse…
«SPONSORED»
Vaping leads to gum disease and Alzheimer’s
If you use e-cigarettes on a daily basis, your mouth is a hotbed of infection-causing organisms.
“Vaping is such a big assault on the oral environment, and the change happens dramatically and over a short period of time,” said Dr. Purnima Kumar.
Dr. Kumar is a professor of periodontology at Ohio State University and the senior author of a study that examined what’s going on, bacteria-wise, in the mouths of people who vape.
In short, the bacteria in the mouths’ of vapers, aged 21 to 35, who had only been vaping between four months to a year’s time, was found to closely resemble that of people with periodontitis, a gum infection that, left untreated, is a risk factor for heart and lung disease.
If that wasn’t alarming enough periodontitis has been linked to the growth of amyloid plaques, the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, and increased risk of esophageal cancer, diabetes and kidney disease.
Vaping is dangerous regardless of your age
The CDC reports that, since Oct. 17, there have been 33 confirmed deaths in the U.S. from vaping-related illness, involving severe breathing problems.
Roughly half of those were people over the age of 50.
Vaping is particularly dangerous for those with compromised respiratory systems, or who are at risk of pneumonia.
The vapor from electronic cigarettes elevates levels of a molecule called PAFR (platelet-activating factor receptor), which helps stick bacteria associated with pneumonia to the nose, throat and lungs.
A British research team studied the cells lining the nose of 17 regular e-cigarette users one hour after vaping. PAFR levels had tripled compared to normal levels.
Professor Jonathan Grigg of Queen Mary University in London led the research team.
“… these results suggest that vaping makes the airways more vulnerable to bacteria sticking to airway lining cells.
“If this occurs when a vaper gets exposed to the pneumococcal bacterium, this could increase the risk of infection.
“… this study adds to growing evidence that inhaling vapor has the potential to cause adverse health effects.”
And it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re vaping nicotine or non-nicotine e-cigarettes. The risk is the same.
So how else can you quit?
Don’t despair if you’ve been depending on e-cigarettes as your road to quitting. There are other ways.
But if you need a really good reason to quit, read about how smoking multiplies your lungs “connecting points” for the COVID-19 virus, making it infinitely easier for the virus to enter and infect your lungs.
One of the best things you can do to help yourself quit is to find a partner. Quitting smoking can be a lonely job, and it’s easier if you have someone to check in with who knows what you’re going through.
Dr. Elizabeth Klodas offers some insight into finding the quitting “timetable” that works best for you.
Sources:
- A few months of vaping puts healthy people on the brink of oral disease — Technology.org
- Vaping risk for elderly as pneumonia link revealed — The Telegraph
- Vaping Dangers for Older Adults — AARP
By Joyce Hollman
«SPONSORED»
