e-Cigarettes: What is the deal? (spoken in Seinfeld voice)

Searching e-cigarettes on Twitter will surely do one very specific thing.  Confuse the crap out of you!  Look at this picture.  Huffington Post says the vapor juice can increase your chances of getting a really hard to beat staph infection while Reuters says it's a great way to quit.  Both of these should fall under the hashtag WTF.  Allow me to weigh in on this one.  Forget all you think you know about the e-cigarette for a second and let's put some attention on traditional cigarettes; you know the one's with actual tobacco.  Habitual and consistent smoking of tobacco cigarettes will lead to an early death.  Period.  Usually the early death comes with severe pain and suffering as well.  Sure, someone's Grandmother smoked and lived to be 82 and her heart stopped one night while she slept.  Consider this.  How long would she have gone if she hadn't smoked first of all and secondly, YOU are not that woman.  Those lucky few are exceptions to the rule and we seek them out to provide us comfort and to avoid the reality that continuing this habit will lead us to an early grave.

Contemplating our own mortality is never easy.  We tend to create a mindset where we don't have to look it square in the eye.  Look at the marketing done by cigarette companies from the get go.  They were glamorous and showed people living.  Celebrities endorsed them, movies used them, doctors and opera singers were paid to recommend certain brands, tobacco companies gave cigarettes to the troops during both world wars.  Nothing about their advertising speaks of an early death wrought with pain and disease.  Rather, tobacco companies put up images like the Marlboro Man and Virginia Slims show progressive women.  They want you to feel ALIVE when you smoke, not setting yourself up for a bad exit.  Following me so far?

Now, what is happening right now in the world of the electronic cigarette?  The call it an e-cigarette.  Makes it sound totally harmless.  Like e-mail or e-commerce.  And now, you don't smoke an e-cigarette, you vape.  Because it's just vapor.  Right?  Harmless.  Right?  Sure...  I guess.  And that's the problem isn't it?  We're guessing for now...  just like 100 years ago.  What else is similar?  Celebrity endorsements?  Freedom themed marketing?  A healthy alternative?

At the end of the day, either way, you're rolling the dice.  At the end of the day you still wind up addicted to nicotine.  When the smoke settles (pun intended) you must recognize that every time you light up, electronic or otherwise you are handing over control of your mood, decisions, finances and life to a chemical that is lethal at 30-60 mg in humans, weakens the immune system, elevates blood pressure, messes with your hormones, all kinds of stuff, so while you're not dealing with the tar and smoke from tobacco, you're really just exchanging one set of complications from your addiction for another and yes, you're still addicted.  The downside of addiction is for another blog altogether, but nicotine is not good for you no matter how you chose to deliver it to yourself.  And you deserve total freedom from it.

While e-cigarettes may make it a little easier to stop smoking tobacco cigarettes and some studies show a moderate advantage over the patch and gum, do you really believe these people want you to quit?  Really?  They are all drug dealers.  Every one of them.

The Effect of Smoking and Your Skin

How does smoking damage the skin?  Here are 8 Ways It Damages Skin from an article from Rahad Abir in The Guardian:

"Apart from many adverse health effects, there are some lesser known health effects of smoking as well. It may cause early wrinkles, and accelerate the total aging of skin. Taking each puff causes irreparable skin damage. Just only 10 years of this habit, it’s likely to see the effects in the faces of young adults. Here is some of the harmful effects on the skin:

Aging

Cigarette smoking leads to early skin aging. Numerous studies have found that it speeds up skin aging more than experience to sunlight does. The consequence of exposure to sunlight and cigarette smoke together, other studies have reported, is more detrimental than the joint result of either exposure alone. In addition, men are at lower risk than women. A recent University of Michigan study found that smokers showed signs of accelerated aging below the neck and even on their inner arms.

Wrinkles

Untimely wrinkling is linked with this habit. Evidence showed that heavy smokers may have more early wrinkles than occasional smokers, and that men’s skin is less affected than women’s.

Skin tissue changing

Several studies reported the skin tissues of non-smokers and smokers as a measure of untimely aging, and found that the consequence was largely noticeable in men. Collagen and elastin are also harmed—the fibers that give skin its strength and elasticity.

Smoking and wound healing

Puffing tobacco decrease the capability of the skin to repair wounds and regenerate. This is largely apparent in patients who are undergoing a surgery. A cigarette has nicotine, which causes vasoconstriction. When the blood vessels are being constricted, the blood that they transport throughout the body is lesser, thus, the amount of nutrients needed for the skin to regenerate is reduced. In addition, carbon monoxide is the other toxic component that cuts the flow of oxygen in the body, and the amount of oxygen required for the broken cells to regenerate.

Moisture

Unmoisturized skin might take on a red, flaky or scaly appearance. Available proof suggests that the habit decreases moisture in the skin. Another study revealed that females who smoked above 10 cigarettes every day had expressively lower mean moisture values than non-smokers.

Skin blood flow

Smoking decreases skin blood flow by rising the discharge of vasopressin hormone. Vasopressin is formed naturally by humans, and lowers blood flow. Researches have reported that concentrations of vasopressin in the blood increase straightaway after having a cigarette. This habit narrows the tiny blood vessels in the outermost layers of skin that decreases blood flow. This depletes the skin of oxygen and nutrients that are essential to skin health.

Skin cancer

Smoking rockets skin cancer risk. Pipe and cigarette smokers, a Dutch study showed, were in double risk as likely as non-smokers to progress squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, when other risk factors (for example, age and sun exposure) were taken into account. The same study showed that present smokers were expected to grow the condition more than former smokers.

Psoriasis

Psoriasis is a scarce skin condition characterized by the formation of silvery, plaque-like scales on the arms and legs, mainly at the knees and elbows. A 2007 study found that if one cigarette pack is smoked per day for ten years or less, psoriasis risk increases 20 percent. Even secondhand smoke during pregnancy or childhood is linked to a higher risk.

These are only some of the detrimental effects on the skin. Surprisingly, there are more of them that may take place immediately or after some time. The effects on the skin, however, can never be concealed especially after a long time of smoking."

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