I'm thinking of articles like https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-nicotine-all-b...

I'm obviously talking about moderate doses. I know concentrated nicotine is very toxic :)

Best summary I'm aware of (note the many caveats): https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine

I am a pretty serious athlete. Vaping - whether it was 3mg or 0mg e-juice - fucked with my lungs pretty badly, and caused a noticeable drop in athletic performance. Also made me feel way less motivated to lift weights and train, which I chalked up to the instant gratification of nicotine. When I did lift weights and train, I always felt like I wasn't able to give 100%.

I quit, but goddamn it was a pain in the ass to quit. It's not even the nicotine I miss, really, so much as it is the whole experience. The heat, the vapor, the flavor, the habit.

Friends of mine that have switched from smoking cigarettes to vaping e-juice have reported an increase in cardiovascular capacity; but as a non-smoker that started vaping, I definitely noticed decreased performance.

At super low power it's pretty much totally safe and the impact on breathing is temporary[1]. At ~>18 watts formaldehyde starts to become a possible irritant, and there are also lots of other carbonyls. One of the really fun ones in the graph in [1] is acrolein- it's still at extremely low levels but that shit is not anything you want in your body. It's generated in small amounts any time anything fatty is burned, but absorbing it through your lungs daily is a totally different thing.

Vaping at low power (<20 watts) is pretty safe, but my girlfriends vape goes up to 200 and she uses it constantly at 85 or so. There are definitely significant amounts of chemicals besides glycerine and propylene glycol.

[1]: https://monq.com/vg/

This is why I really wish someone would sell an ultrasonic vape, which the original patent included. That should be far safer, but so far, nobody seems to be making them.

Kanthal requires a very specific heating profile after installation to develop its protective coating. Without that its basically just weird, fancy stainless steel. It becomes very brittle after the heat treat which causes gradual degradation especially during repeated, fast heating cycles. I would not use it.

I would also avoid low-alloy stainless like 400 series. That's the cheapest kind and at elevated temperature it oxidizes and corrodes. 300 series would be better, 500 would be best. Even within those two series though, some alloys will be much better than others.

Nickel... I don't know. It's very sensitive to composition and some can leach into liquid and others don't. It's more toxic than iron or chromium, but pretty resistant to temperature. Kind of a wash.

Cigar and pipe smokers as a rule don't have the kind of compulsive many a day habits that cigarette smokers do.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco-specific_nitrosamines

http://www.medicinenet.com/smokeless_tobacco/article.htm

To me it's unclear whether or not nicotine itself is actually bad.

I don't think it takes a huge leap to realize inhaling smoke is not good for you.

At least for commercial cigarettes. It's less clear how large the benefit would be for those smoking pipes or cigars, hookahs, using wild tobacco, freebasing tobacco, etc.

I was a pack-a-day clove smoker for years, and eventually one day I switched to an e-cig. I switched hard to vaping and didn't touch a cigarette again. Soon, I geared down to 4mg nic, and then I just... stopped about two months in. One day I realized I hadn't touched my e-cig in a week, and that was it for me.

That was four years ago, and I've only touched nicotine once since then (I smoked a single clove for old time's sake about two years after I quit... and then I declined a second one).

Looks like he's doing pretty well. Nicotine is extremely addictive. One does not just quit smoking.

Plenty of people do.

Though I have a theory cold turkey quitting normally happens after a health scare of some variety. My father was a 45 year smoker and quit the day of his heart attack.

Another spot of anecdata, when I was a smoker I couldn't go a few hours without a cigarette. After 6 years of vaping, I can pretty much go 8-10 hours with no real craving.

It's unreal how much less of a hold vaping has on me versus cigarettes when that nicotine isn't coming along with a few thousand other chemical compounds.

That's a bold statement, how exactly is vaping definitely not healthy?

How is that a bold statement? People run around vaping like there are zero consequences, but I wouldn't be surprised if research eventually emerges saying certain lower quality fillers/vape mixtures will result in mechanical damage and cancer of the lungs and esophagus. Something similar was apparent with flavoring agents being used in the vape world.

We do that all the time. Ever worked in a newly constructed building? Wondering what that smell is? Plasticizers, monomers, adhesive solvents, etc.

Same with a new car. Or cooking over the stove, bbq'ing. Or walking down a busy street with cars on it.

Just because you are inhaling "foreign chemicals" doesn't mean there are significant risk associated with it.

I agree that we should get more information about the risk of vaping, but the wholesale banning of vaping is likely to be more harmful than just leaving things as is.[1]

[1]Not saying you are arguing for banning vaping, but FDA did take that position originally until they got smacked down

My sentiment is more about where I think the research will go.

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/flavorings/

I'd be interested to hear of more.

I was friends with a major twitch streamer who used to vape literally 24/7, every stream. He got esophageal cancer and died after fighting it for ~1-2 years, roughly around age of 23. Now, obviously this is anecdotal, and obviously it could have just been bad luck/other factors/coincidence. But, I have always raised an eyebrow towards vaping since then. The only forms I consider safer with minimal consequence is dry herb based vaping with convection heat --- See silver surfer vapes for example.

Nicotine alone is not harmful, it's addictive, but not harmful, it's not what causes cancer from smoking.

All apparent evidence is that vaping appears vastly healthier than smoking and there's no reason yet to believe vapor is harmful to the lungs; you breath water vapor all day every day. Calling something "foreign chemicals" might sound scary, but is not a plausible reason to call something definitely unhealthy. The word definitely is very bold, and not remotely justified.

> People run around vaping like there are zero consequences

No, they run around like it's vastly safer than smoking, which it clearly is. There's zero evidence anything to do with vaping has the cancer causing effects of smoke and burnt carcinogens.

Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor. It substantially increases the risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis, especially when combined with another chemical that produces clotting enzymes, such as estrogen. Speaking of estrogen, nicotine also antagonizes the estrogen receptor, which is pretty bad if you're a woman. Ever notice how women who have been smoking for a long time look pretty bad? It's not your imagination, it's because nicotine shuts down their bodies' ability to use estrogen (and estrogen is what causes smooth skin, curves, etc.).

Also, go look up "Green Tobacco Sickness" [0]. Too much nicotine can have all kinds of adverse effects, and since it can be absorbed by the skin, people who handle wet tobacco plants get all kinds of health problems. Oh, and too much nicotine can stop your heart. I've seen people seriously suggest it as a suicide method.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Tobacco_Sickness

As for it being a vasoconstrictor, so is caffeine and any number of other stimulants, that itself in not inherently bad, it's simply an effect.

"Nicotine is bad for you."

"What about water??"

I don't know if it's intentional, but thanks for making my morning better. :)

source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/e-cigs-and-second...

I'm not sure why you consider the OP's statement to be bold as I don't think there are many instances where ingesting chemicals into the lungs is considered healthy.

Eciggs make quitting smoking vastly easier, and eciggs are easier to quit than cigarettes. I routinely go half a day without hitting my ecigg, that never happened with smokes.

I was responding the the OP's statement that saying e-cigarrets were unhealthy was a bold claim.

There are always things that might be considered less harmful but that does not mean they are considered healthy.

"In its product safety assessment for propylene glycol, the Dow Chemical Company recommends individuals avoid inhaling the chemical"[1]

[1] https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a244/