Almost ninety percent of smokers who started using electronic cigarettes completely quit using tobacco, a new study shows, according to the U.K. news outlet Metro. But some people who quit still end up "smoking" more.
The surprising thing about the news is that some of the people who ended up quitting traditional cigarettes we not even trying to stop.
The latest study showed that 86 percent of users had not smoked tobacco since they started using e-cigarettes, which outpaced the 75 percent of e-cigarette users who said they switched to the device with the intention of giving up smoking, Metro reported.
As smoking cigarettes becomes more of a social pariah, using e-cigarettes is becoming more mainstream. There are some clear benefits to using an e-cigarette over smoking a standard one, including the ability to take a few puffs just about anywhere you want, there is no gross burnt tobacco smell and you are not inhaling burnt plant matter into the lungs.
But experts widely agree more research need to be conducted on the long-term health effects of using e-cigarettes.
Writing for The Daily Beast, journalist and prolific ex-smoker Eli Lake offers his take on the e-cigarettes which he has come to depend on:
"The consensus medical research today is that while electronic cigarettes are healthier than tobacco cigarettes, and a good way to end dependency on tobacco, they are not without health risks. Besides the nicotine, the other active ingredient in my cigarettes is propylene glycol, a substance the FDA classifies as GRAS, or "generally recognized as safe." But there's a catch. Most research about propylene glycol is about its effect when it's ingested as an additive in food. Less is known about the effects of inhaling it as a vapor-dozens and dozens of times a day."
In America, more than 20 percent of adult smokers have tried e-cigarettes, according to The Daily Beast. In Britain, up to 1 million people are expected to be using e-cigarettes by the end of the year. While doctors agree that not smoking tobacco is a good move, trading smoking for a surrogate is still questionable.
"We don't know what else is in the vapor. There are other chemicals which allow the nicotine to form droplets, disperse the nicotine, and we don't know how harmful these solutions are," said John Britton, from the Royal College of Physicians.
People who trade standard tobacco for e-cigarettes also may end up "smoking" more, the Daily Beast reported.
"Because I was able to smoke them practically anywhere, I found myself smoking more," said Eric Cire, a 35-year-old from Queens, N.Y. "I couldn't get away from work [to smoke], so I would puff to my heart's content at my desk."