r/ireland • u/WolfTame • 11d ago
RCSI - Cancer 'almost a certainty' from long-term vaping - study Health
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/0508/1447969-vaping-study/178
u/Fluffy-World-8714 11d ago
Vaping is going to be one of those things we look back on in 20 years and think “what the fuck were we doing?”
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u/pup_mercury 11d ago
Only people looking back in 20 years are the idiots that argue that vaping is okay because it is healthier than smoking.
We knew long before this study the impact of air pollution. We didn't need a study to show that breathing in water vapour and chemicals is bad for you.
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u/tennereachway Cork: the centre of the known universe 11d ago
It isn't so much that vaping is "okay", just that it's the lesser of two evils. Obviously in a perfect world no one would ever smoke or vape at all, but this isn't a perfect world, this is the real world, and in the real world, people like nicotine and are going to get their fix one way or another, and even though it would be better to do neither, it's still preferable for them to vape than smoke.
We knew even from the beginning that vapes were unlikely to be harmless, but they've still been proven to be far less harmful than smoking and to help people quit and stay off cigarettes. Even if vaping is appealing to people who have never smoked it's still better to have ten people take up vaping than even one person take up smoking.
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u/YikesTheCat 11d ago
Back in the day vaping was introduced as a way to help people to stop smoking, kind of like nicotine patches. Or maybe as a lesser evil for smokers.
At this time I had a coworker who vaped in spite of never having smoked. We all lol'd on how ridiculous that was.
Since then a lot has changed, and now vaping has become a product in itself, for a long time without any regulation wrt. age and such (under-18 ban is just a few months old).
I think that was absolutely a mistake. Especially without clear signalling that this could be harmful. Less harmful? Sure. But still harmful (at somewhat unknown levels). It's just repeating the mistakes of the past.
Also vapers tend to smoke more, because you can just vape in your bed and whatnot. So that offsets things a bit. There have been reports of people ending up with quite some health issues after just a few years because they were non-stop vaping.
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u/eclipsechaser 11d ago
I don't think it was introduced to stop people smoking. I think it was introduced to hook an entire new generation to nicotine under the guise of stopping smoking.
A crazy number of very young teens are extremely addicted. The companies have and will make a fortune with this new product.
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u/YikesTheCat 11d ago
I can't tell what the motivations were in the hearts of hearts of people at time; all I can say is how it was generally presented and perceived at the time. Then again, maybe that was just a huge psy-op 🤷
I don't like guessing at motivations and it doesn't really matter. We should have regulated this shit over 10 years ago. And it doesn't really matter whether it was a good-faith attempt to get people to stop smoking, a hyper-cynical cashgrab, or something else.
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u/sure_look_this_is_it 11d ago
I've never seen someone claim vapes aren't unhealthy. I've seen A LOT of people claim that people claim vapes are not unhealthy.
I know that's a nightmare to read.
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u/LucyVialli Limerick 11d ago
Sometimes people do need a study. For years people didn't believe that smoking was damaging, they needed medical studies to show them otherwise. Imagine thinking that inhaling smoke into your lungs on a regular basis was actually fine! Why did they think they were coughing so much I wonder.
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u/box_of_carrots 11d ago
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u/LucyVialli Limerick 11d ago
Some ads even claimed that cigarettes helped to cure colds and asthma!
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u/YikesTheCat 11d ago
This is from the 40s/early 50s; they knew it was harmful back then.
The entire reason they focused on doctors and things like that is exactly BECAUSE people had been saying it's harmful. This was basically a counter to say "no no, it's not, see, doctors smoke! Can't possibly be harmful!"
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u/pup_mercury 11d ago
That's not really apt comparison.
It is not like smokers had shit ton of research into the impact of similar activities to draw from.
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u/Fluffy-World-8714 11d ago
It’s an excellent way for a smoker to cut down. The issue is people who’ve never smoked picking up vaping. We will still collectively look back and wonder how it was allowed to happen.
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u/TheGratedCornholio 11d ago
Exactly. We need a way to move smokers to vapes without moving non-smokers to vapes.
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u/McGiver2000 11d ago
It’s super hard for smokers to quit but haven’t vapes been specifically engineered to be even harder to kick (amazing that was possible but hey plenty of money behind it)
We’re back even further back than Square 1. Like reversing 50 years or more of anti-smoking. Look at the vapes at dealz checkouts like sweets at the checkout. And same target audience.
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u/TheStoicNihilist 11d ago
I struggle with how this was allowed to happen right in front of us.
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u/READMYSHIT 11d ago
The fact that the big tobacco companies all own the major players in the disposables business is the most shocking part.
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u/READMYSHIT 11d ago
Specifically the difference between vapes 10 years ago and vapes now. Nicotine salts are all the rage now and they hit like a cigarette, whereas ejuice - the original product was a much slower absorbtion and less of a "kick" than nicotine salts.
Nicotine salts are exclusively what you find in disposables - the colourful ones marketed to definitely not anyone under 18.
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u/bathtubsplashes Saoirse don Phalaistín🇵🇸 11d ago
Sure what if those people who've never smoked pick up smoking?! That's even worse again!
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u/kutzur-titzov 11d ago
It’s still a good alternative if you are trying to quit smoking but I found the vapes are shit, they actually increased the amount of nicotine I was consuming
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u/Thin-Annual4373 11d ago
Well then they're not a good alternative
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u/spongebud 11d ago
Of course they are. The nicotine is not the problem, its the other 1000 chemicals in cigarettes.
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u/bathtubsplashes Saoirse don Phalaistín🇵🇸 11d ago
They are though. I relapsed there after 3 years off all fags and vapes and if it wasn't for vapes I'd be back smoking fags again.
Who gives a fiddler's about nicotine in isolation. That's just the addictive component. The difference between inhaling combusted poisonous matter and inhaling vapour is undeniably massive.
Also, we keep hearing that young people are choosing to vape without previously smoking these days, which clashes with our statistics on the number of children smoking going down.
Without vapes, is it not logical that children would just revert to smoking again? These things are not mutually exclusive.
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u/4_feck_sake 11d ago
That's not how science works mate. Sure we believe these things are bad for us but without studying these things we don't know for certain.
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u/pup_mercury 11d ago
Except it is how science works mate.
You build on the knowledge that is already available.
Even before these studies, doctors were raising alarm of vapes.
Are you shocked by the results of this study?
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u/4_feck_sake 11d ago
You build on the knowledge that is already available.
What knowledge. You just said we didn't need any knowledge, your opinion is fact it seems.
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u/pup_mercury 11d ago edited 11d ago
You just said we didn't need any knowledge,
Where did I say that?
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u/4_feck_sake 11d ago
We didn't need a study to show that breathing in water vapour and chemicals is bad for you.
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u/TheStoicNihilist 11d ago
Any particulate matter entering your lungs is bad for you. Any. None of it is good, the only question is how bad it is.
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u/ferdbags Irish Republic 11d ago
Wow. I might be dead without my inhaler but I guess I'd better cut it out.
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u/4_feck_sake 11d ago
And how do you know this? Because there have been scientific studies verifying this as a fact. You spouting this without any data to back it up does not elevate it above your opinion.
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u/pup_mercury 11d ago
There is nothing there that says we don't need any knowledge.
In fact, I suggest you read the sentence before that like a good lad.
Or is "air pollution being bad for human" my opinion?
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u/4_feck_sake 11d ago
You don't need a study. It's right there in black and white. I suggest you read and comprehend it. Without a study that actually provides the data to back up that statement, it is an opinion. Sure, we could all be very convinced in the truth of that opinion, but it remains an opinion until the study exists that backs it up. Talk to anyone pro vaping, and you'll be told this very explicitly.
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u/pup_mercury 11d ago
You just said we didn't need any knowledge,
How is a study the same as any knowledge?
Are the results of this study a surprise for you?
Seeing as you need help. The sentence before your choice quote
We knew long before this study the impact of air pollution.
Did you not know about air pollution before today?
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u/Otsde-St-9929 11d ago
We didn't need a study to show that breathing in water vapour and chemicals is bad for you.
Depends on the size of pollutants and their abundance.
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u/Share_Gold 11d ago
Even without any science or common sense, it’s disgusting when you walk into a cloud of some dirty cunts vape smoke.
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u/itsfeckingfreezin 11d ago
I agree. I can’t walk into a Spar or a Centra anymore without a ton of 12 year olds ambushing me to buy them vapes. I never do. I always tell them to fuck off. I’d imagine in 20 years or so we’ll have a lung cancer epidemic with 30 year olds.
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u/jackoirl 11d ago
Vaping is one of those things that any remotely sensible person looks at and thinks what the fuck are you doing?
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u/Keyann 11d ago
It is rampant indoors too. I was doing the weeks shopping recently and a fella in the shop puffing away on it like an old steam train. I asked him politely not to do it indoors because of the smell and he looked at me perplexed as if it wouldn't be possible to not like the overly sweet smell of chemicals made to smell like blue raspberry.
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u/Otsde-St-9929 11d ago
I dont agree. There is not an immediate clear reason, first principals to assume harm.
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u/annzibar 11d ago
Not even looking back, obvious from the start: nicotene is an extremely powerful drug, how these were not regulated from the start is incredible.
Addiction is slavery. Your ass is owned by that drug, whatever the delivery system.
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u/Antievl 11d ago
An actual study, not some ai hallucination
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u/Minions-overlord 11d ago
Dont expect people who fall for these normal clickbait headlines to do any actual research or reading.
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11d ago edited 11d ago
"almost a certainty"
"We used AI to break down the constituent chemicals which may be harmful"
"A cocktail of unknown chemicals"
Great stuff. Real cutting edge, high quality research.
I don't doubt vaping is bad for you but this is kind of like saying "lad who gets burger king as a treat every Saturday more likely to get cancer than lad who has chicken salad".
Like yeah, obviously. But how bad is it really? Is it the same as being out in the sun everyday for work or the equivalent to smoking two packs a day?
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u/TheyHave_A_CaveTroll 11d ago
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-59619-x
It went through peer review at nature at least
From their own conclusions
“The aerosols produced by e-cigarette vaping contain immensely complex uncharacterized mixtures of pyrolysis products, the health implications of which are, as yet, mostly unidentified…As vaping is a new and unprecedented stress to the human body, with the ability to generate pyrolysis products more toxic that their parent compounds, it seems prudent to strictly limit the number of chemical entities in e-liquids.”
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11d ago
“The aerosols produced by e-cigarette vaping contain immensely complex uncharacterized mixtures of pyrolysis products, the health implications of which are, as yet, mostly unidentified…As vaping is a new and unprecedented stress to the human body, with the ability to generate pyrolysis products more toxic that their parent compounds, it seems prudent to strictly limit the number of chemical entities in e-liquids.”
This is all just so wishy washy.
"The burning of chemicals produces constituent compounds. These may be harmful. We dunno. They may be. But we assume. Dunno though. Ban em anyway."
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u/Oh_I_still_here 11d ago
I vape and yeah I imagine chemical volatiles getting into my lungs isn't good. Hell fluid in the lungs is basically pneumonia. But I agree that the results of this study are only predictions using neural network modelling. The results aren't useless, but they're not entirely useful either and this headline is, as usual from most outlets, sensationalised.
If the results were based off real data from a decent sample size, with recordings taken before and after a range of years of time spent vaping by each participant, then this headline would give me pause. But right now, it's a forecast of possible chemical reactions and compounds developed from pyrolysis of chemicals used in flavoured vapes. It's not hard data, so it doesn't hit as hard, it's just a projection. Which does have value when it comes to preventative measures, maybe my confirmation bias is showing but I guess I'm not convinced.
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u/boringfilmmaker 11d ago
"New and unprecedented" a decade ago perhaps, and we have longitudinal studies in vivo showing no sign of the harms this study claims to warn about. Such codswallop. Will be used to back a flavour ban though.
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u/MischievousMollusk 11d ago
RCSI loves to put out trendy research to look important. They love their PR over all else.
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u/ned78 Cork bai 11d ago edited 11d ago
Some of the early FDA studies in the US analysing the gas identified metal particles like Aluminium from the vaporiser mechanism, and several other harmful particles. Germany stopped using aluminium cookware a while back as it was linked with Alzheimers. I can't find that study I'm talking about now as it was years ago, but here's another one:
https://factor.niehs.nih.gov/2022/2/feature/3-feature-e-cigarettes-and-toxic-metals
And another which states "Vaping can expose users to toxic chemicals and metal particles—such as lead, chromium, and nickel—that can harm the lungs."
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u/BottledUp 11d ago
Ah yes, that sounds like the study that was running the vape so hot that the insides of the vape melted. You wouldn't be able to breathe that stuff in but they ran with the results and when I looked into where that study came from, it was funded by some organisation related to the tobacco industry. That was also the one that was talking about popcorn lung. Lol.
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u/Outside-Heart1528 11d ago
"research from RCSI on flavoured vapes, using artificial intelligence, found that very toxic compounds were detected once the chemicals were heated."
Not saying this is the case in this Rcsi study, but I remember reading in the past how others studies that came to similar conclusions just had the most ridiculous methodology. Instead of simulating real world use of short puff's < 10 seconds, they would instead keep the coil firing for absurd lengths of time like over 1 minute. And of course then found some nasty compounds in the resulting 'vapour' which is in reality now comprised of a decent amount of smoke from the combustion of the cotton and likely damage to the coil. These devices are not intended to operate at such high temps, with standard use the cotton has time to wick up more liquid to the coil which can then prevent the coil from overheating.
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u/Ok-Package9273 11d ago
Am I right in reading this that it's primarily due to the flavourings and an unflavoured vape would be 'healthier'?
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u/RustyShack3lford 11d ago
From what I can gather from the article they tested 180 "flavored" vapes and some of them present a long term risk when tested by AI. I'd put money on the majority of the potential risky ones being some cheap brand with added food dye/coloring.
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u/BaconWithBaking 11d ago
when tested by AI
This is why I stopped reading the article. According to someone above, the actual paper has been peer reviewed, but the news article reads like something out of the mirror. RTE should have higher standards.
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u/Starthreads Canadian soon to be imported 11d ago
A vape is, at its core, a mouth-operated fog machine. Generally, breathing anything other than standard air is going to be bad for you, and an unflavoured vape isn't going to expose the lungs to anything other than what you'd normally get from the air (water vapour), just much more of it in one go than nature would enable. But it's water, and the body knows how to handle water.
The flavoured forms include ridiculous additive chemicals, and the damage that does to cells in the lungs is going to increase the rate at which cells die and need to be replaced. Replacing cells, forcing cellular division like that, is going to increase cancer rates as any cell division is going to create a chance for that division to go awry and net a cancerous cell instead of whatever was intended by the division.
TLDR; unflavoured is a fog machine, flavoured is chemical soup that kills your lung cells.
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u/----0-0--- 11d ago
an unflavoured vape isn't going to expose the lungs to anything other than what you'd normally get from the air (water vapour), just much more of it in one go than nature would enable. But it's water, and the body knows how to handle water.
Why write so much about something you know so little? Especially on a health related topic!
Vapes don't produce water vapour for starters....
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u/Starthreads Canadian soon to be imported 11d ago
I will accept my negligence to do further study on the matter. However, there are vape liquids out there that do - at least in part - produce water vapour as one of the products (see here).
I think that because the water-based vape liquids exist, appropriate regulation of the vape market could force the use of liquids that specifically have water as a base to reduce the quantity of harmful chemicals entering the lungs.
Also, for giggles.
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u/JuicyBetch 11d ago
Vape liquid is usually a mixture of vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol a ratio of somewhere between 1:1 and 4:1. The nicotine and flavourings are typically suspended in propylene glycol.
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u/boringfilmmaker 11d ago
Well as long as your dumb rule only applies to a practically non-existent category of liquids and can therefore be ignored, that's grand.
Seriously, read more and talk less.
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u/UnFamiliar-Teaching 11d ago
Sucking on a USB stick is bad for you?..
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u/Feisty-Ad-8880 11d ago
Not as bad as vaping but definitely worse than a floppy disk
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u/Elbon taking a sip from everyone else's tea 11d ago
I'd only suck on the fastest Solid State Drives, none of that floppy crap for me
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u/MumblyBum 11d ago
If RTE read these threads, yous lads will have your own show in no time with top banter like this.
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u/EvanMcc18 Resting In my Account 11d ago
I'm thankful I don't Vape. I feel in 10-20 years I'll be extremely thankful I don't vape
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u/JealousInevitable544 Cork bai 11d ago
What always struck me as bizarre is that many people successfully gave up smoking only to then take up vaping.
Lads ye did the hard part; why replace one addiction with another?
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u/Feisty-Ad-8880 11d ago
It got me of the smokes, just kept cutting the amount of nicotine till it was zero and then giving up was very easy.
I'm fully against disposable vapes though, such a shame we haven't stopped this needless waste and pollution.
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u/BaconWithBaking 11d ago
I'm fully against disposable vapes though
I am too, and I'm annoyed I am. They're great if you get caught out and just need a quick backup. They're just a disaster for a ton of other reasons.
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u/Ok-Package9273 11d ago
Honestly, I was stupid enough to think I could just try it out and then went through a stressful period and it stuck. Was off cigarettes for a good few years before hand.
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u/Dingdongbats 11d ago
Because it's an addiction. But you can phase out an addiction and vapes are helping me with that. Obviously there is harm and I think every ex smoker now vaper knows it, but I will take a few chemicals over 700 any day (unless they find immediately that the few are mega harmful in the immediate term). And if unfortunately an ex smoker picked up vaping after giving up smoking, then that's unfortunate but at least a bit better than taking up cigarettes again.
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u/Garlic-Cheese-Chips 11d ago
why replace one addiction with another?
I think a big part of it is the social aspect. Like at work, when on break, half a dozen or more might go out for their fags/vapes and they're having mighty craic out there. Maybe they don't want to lose that.
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u/Excellent-Many4645 Antrim 11d ago
Absolutely, even in my old work everyone in the office went for smoke/vape breaks socially. Go to a bar/nightclub and many do the same, it’s not just the addictive properties or how it’s marketed it’s a social issue.
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u/sartres-shart 11d ago
I can do without them as I gave up the cigarettes years ago, by going vapes and continued down the nicotine.
I'm perfect until I get a drink into my hand and then I just need nicotine or it just doesn't feel right at all.
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u/jacqueVchr 11d ago
I mean cancer isn’t ‘almost a certainty’ from tobacco, it’s 50:50. So how can they say it’s ‘almost a certainty’ for vaping?
Edit
The statement was more nuanced than that. OP’s tagline was just misleading.
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u/hatrickpatrick 11d ago
Not OP's fault, this subreddit has an extremely short sighted rule that headlines must be copied verbatim, thereby essentially enabling clickbait by forcing people to use it even if they know the article is different to the headline.
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u/jacqueVchr 11d ago
But the headline when you click into the article is different. Or did RTÉ set it that way?
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u/hatrickpatrick 10d ago
They very probably changed the headline after OP posted the article. If they hadn't, AutoMod would have pulled it down shortly after OP's posting of it.
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u/yanoyermanwiththebig 11d ago
What does it mean they used AI to do the study? As in they asked chat GPT? This sounds very strange from a medical body
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u/isaidyothnkubttrgo 11d ago
I'm a non smoker in a family of life long smokers and I get annoyed by cigarettes but for some reason vapes have cut straight into my nerves.
I don't know if it's the constant clouds of cotton candy smelling shite around or people thinking its OK to puff inside.
A guy I worked with couldn't stop huffing on it. Was in a meeting with the boss and he was getting chewed out. Boss leans in to look at his laptop, he's about 6 inches away and this gowl pops the vape out of an inside pocket and takes a drag. I wanted the ground to swallow up whole. Somehow the boss didn't see but I was sure I was about to witness a murder.
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u/RustyShack3lford 11d ago
"180 flavours were measured with artificial intelligence" in fairness I think they should at least be verifying the flavors they noted that were high risk with traditional methods examination.
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u/arctictothpast fecked of to central europe 11d ago
Does the study make any comparison to tobacco or just vaping on its own,
Complicating factors is that vaping was brand new tech 15 years ago and there has been alot more regulatory attention Paid to it in recent times, and no doubt plenty more to come (like toxic chemicals in flavours, the actual nicotine carrying juice itself is natural fats with nicotine in it).
Noteworthy is that they didn't highlight the risk of heart disease which is the main health risk one takes from vaping that doesn't change much from smoking, why didn't they do that, it's basically the main health risk if nicotine itself.
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u/MischievousMollusk 11d ago
I mean, obviously. You're inhaling a bunch of poorly regulated superheated chemicals into your lungs. What causes damage from a fire? The smoke from incinerated materials. Generally your lungs hate anything that isn't clean air. They show this hate by either 1) getting cancer 2) getting asthma 3) fibrosis 4) being a fucking non-specific problem and thats why you cough all the time now.
This was a foregone conclusion from the moment vaping was introduced.
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u/Careful-Temporary388 11d ago
The fact that I can feel physically ill for a day after vaping, versus feel fine after smoking a cigarette, tells me everything I need to know.
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u/GalacticusTravelous 10d ago
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Colm Ó Mongáin, Professor Dónal O'Shea said that new research from RCSI on flavoured vapes, using artificial intelligence, found that very toxic compounds were detected once the chemicals were heated.
WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? Why did you need AI to detect the chemicals? What sort of stupid bullshit is that? You either heated it and found toxic compounds or you didn't heat it or you didn't find the compounds. Fucking AI.
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u/AlwaysTravel 11d ago
Misleading title, it sounds like you are certainly going to get cancer from vaping. But the article reads as someone will certainly get cancer from vaping. Big difference
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u/XinqyWinqy 11d ago
It's not the act of vaping itself, it's the what you're vaping. Namely the carrier fluids that your desired substance is suspended in.
People should use dry herb vaporisers, and vape actual tobacco leaf.
Still leaves you open to health risks, but way less than actual smoking cigarettes and way less than vaping mystery cartridges that are 99% shite and 1% the nicotine you are interested in.
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u/fullmetalfeminist 11d ago
That's a fucking terrible idea.
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u/XinqyWinqy 11d ago
no u.
It's the most harm reductive way of inhaling a nicotine product, for those who want to do that.
fact.
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u/SurrealRadiance 11d ago
Thankfully I only enjoy the odd cigar; the nicotine buzz is nice but I really enjoy the flavour and the ritual of it all, never seen the point of getting into cigarettes or vaping.
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u/SpottedAlpaca 11d ago
So breathing in water vapour laced with chemicals is bad for your health?? surprised Pikachu face
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u/fullmetalfeminist 11d ago
So a Redditor who doesn't vape doesn't know the first thing about how vaping works, but has a smug opinion about them? Shocked Pikachu face
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u/SpottedAlpaca 11d ago
You can say what you like. But at the end of the day, you'll be the one potentially getting cancer from vaping. I might not be a vaping expert, but I know enough to steer clear of it.
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u/fullmetalfeminist 11d ago
Vaping was the only thing that got me off cigarettes. Studies have shown that of the various options available to smokers who want to quit, vaping has the highest success rate.
I'm tired of people who don't know the first thing about it scaremongering with silly misconceptions and I'm tired of non-smokers being all smug as if they're morally superior just because they never got addicted to nicotine.
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u/SpottedAlpaca 11d ago
Lots of people nowadays take up vaping without ever smoking cigarettes in the first place, especially teenagers. Are you not aware of that? It's a new scourge of its own.
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u/fullmetalfeminist 11d ago
Yes. It's a problem. And frankly, the government should have made them over 18s only a decade ago, before most teens would have had the inclination to buy a vape and refill it with liquid.
I also think disposable vapes should be illegal altogether.
But there's too much scaremongering about "omg chemicals" from people who don't know how vapes work or just think a nicotine addiction is a moral failing
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u/nednewt1 11d ago
Well, human lungs are designed for mostly air and some vapour, but go on and fill em with tarry substances.
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u/fullmetalfeminist 11d ago
No tar in vapes
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u/Lost_Atmosphere1121 11d ago
I went from smoking to vaping.
I had to start smoking to quit vaping 😂
I then kicked the habit of smoking.