Making Sense of Nonsense

A few days ago news reports starting appearing with titles like “Are E-Cigarettes Bad For Health? Study Shows They Quickly Affect Airways” and the collective ears of the vaping universe perked up.

“Researchers in Greece saw changes in the lung function of healthy smokers who puffed on an e-cigarette for just five minutes — although it’s not clear what the long-term result of those responses might be in regular e-cigarette users, the team reports in the journal Chest.”

OK fine. What exactly does that mean?

“”This is the first evidence that just one (e-cigarette) use can have acute physiologic effects,” said lead researcher Constantine I. Vardavas, of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at the Harvard School of Public Health.”

OK, again, fine. That’s not exactly world shattering as breathing in any chemical compound (including oxygen!) is going to have some sort of acute reaction.

Still asking, what does this mean?

“The researchers found that after five minutes, users showed signs of airway constriction — as measured by several types of breathing tests — and of inflammation.”

Yeah…still not telling me anything useful. The rest of the article was the usual “stick to useless pharma products” so we’re not going to learn anything more here. Maybe I should look at the details of the actual study.

Background: Debate exists as to the scientific evidence for their claims that e-cigarettes have no health related ramifications. Our aim was to assess whether using an e-cigarette for five minutes has an impact on pulmonary function tests and exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) among healthy adult smokers.

“Healthy adult smokers”? I didn’t think such a thing existed in the world of Tobacco Control. Nevermind, move on.

I don’t think anybody (outside from the usual profiteering cowboys) have claimed that e-cigs have NO health effects, just that they are significantly safer than continuing to smoke.

Methods: 30 healthy non smokers (ages 19-56, 14 male) participated in this laboratory based experimental vs. control group study. Ab lib use of an e-cigarette for 5 minutes with the cartridge included (experimental group n=30) or removed from the device (control group n=10) was assessed.

Hold on. The first bit says “health adult smokers” and now we’re talking about “healthy non smokers”. Which is it? Still, let’s not get stuck on semantics.

30 people. Small study, but let’s not hold that against the results just yet…

Results: Using an e-cigarette for 5 minutes was found to lead to an immediate decrease in exhaled FeNO within the experimental group by…(blah, blah, blah, technical data).

OK then. The first question still stands. What the hell does all that techno-babble mean?

Conclusions: E-cigarettes assessed in the context of this study were found to have immediate adverse physiologic effects after short term use that are similar to some of the effects seen with tobacco smoking, however the long term health effects of e-cigarette use are unknown but potentially adverse and worthy of further investigation.

So we’re back to where we started. Still no idea WHAT the “adverse physiologic effects” actually are, and ending with the usual ”it might be dangerous, but we still don’t know because we still haven’t found any real evidence.”

Now I’m annoyed. It’s coming across as a bit of a scare piece as it doesn’t contain any information a laymen could understand. Fortunately somebody who DOES know what they’re talking about has weighed in.

American Council on Science and Health:
“E-Cigarette study is just amateur propaganda”

“So what?” asks ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross. “Anything you inhale will affect your airways. Airway constriction is non-specific and has nothing to do with lung problems like emphysema or lung cancer, which are associated with smoking. You can’t assume from these data that there would be any long-term harm. Further, I wonder what tests these folks used to detect airway ‘inflammation,’ which is not reflected in the airway dynamics they measured.”

Finally an answer: The original study doesn’t actually mean anything at all.

ACSH’s final comment is better than anything I could write so let’s leave the final word to them:

The study’s lead researcher recommends that, instead of trying e-cigarettes as a reduced-risk method to quit smoking, smokers should “stick to the methods that are known to work.” But Dr. Ross criticizes this recommendation. “He would have more accurately said, ‘stick to the methods that are known to not work,’ since those currently approved have a ‘success’ rate of only 5 to 10 percent. It’s the old ‘quit or die,’ abstinence-only agenda.”

Why did all of that remind me of trying to have a conversation with Victoria Health?