Gul Fahad, Khan Alishba A, Kazmi Syed N H, Abbas Khawar, Basit Jawad
Departments of Medicine.
Surgery, Rawalpindi Medical University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Ann Med Surg (Lond). 2023 Mar 27;85(5):2270-2272. doi: 10.1097/MS9.0000000000000297. eCollection 2023 May.
Electronic cigarettes, or "vaping," are battery-operated devices that heat a liquid containing propylene glycol, nicotine, and some flavoring agents, which aerosolize to produce vapors that the user inhales. They were introduced in 2003 and became popular worldwide as a less irritating alternative to combustible cigarettes. While they were initially advertised as smoking cessation aids, their use has taken the shape of an epidemic in some regions of the world. Vaping prevalence is high in South Asia, where a significant number of people use tobacco and smokeless tobacco. According to data from Pakistan, 6.2% of the population uses vaping/e-cigarettes, while 15.9 million (12.4%) use smokeless tobacco. Vaping may be a safer alternative to cigarette smoking, as e-cigarettes do not contain all the toxins that regular cigarettes do, and the aerosol from e-cigarettes has no appreciable cytotoxic, genotoxic, or inflammatory effects when inhaled. However, nicotine addiction is a concern, as it is the main culprit behind smoking addiction, and e-cigarettes may become a new pathway toward nicotine addiction. Hence, their effectiveness in smoking cessation is still debatable, and their role as a tool for smoking cessation needs further research.
电子烟，即“雾化吸用”，是一种由电池供电的装置，它加热一种含有丙二醇、尼古丁和一些调味剂的液体，这些液体会雾化产生使用者吸入的蒸汽。电子烟于2003年问世，并作为一种比可燃香烟刺激性更小的替代品在全球流行起来。虽然它们最初被宣传为戒烟辅助工具，但在世界一些地区，其使用已呈泛滥之势。在南亚，雾化吸用的流行率很高，那里有大量人口使用烟草和无烟烟草。根据巴基斯坦的数据，6.2%的人口使用雾化吸用/电子烟，而1590万人（12.4%）使用无烟烟草。雾化吸用可能是吸烟的一种更安全的替代方式，因为电子烟并不包含普通香烟所含的所有毒素，而且电子烟产生的气溶胶吸入时没有明显的细胞毒性、基因毒性或炎症作用。然而，尼古丁成瘾是一个问题，因为它是吸烟成瘾的主要元凶，而且电子烟可能成为尼古丁成瘾的一条新途径。因此，它们在戒烟方面的有效性仍有争议，其作为戒烟工具的作用需要进一步研究。
