FDA Proves that E-Cigars Are Harmful to Your Health

There are thousands of quit smoking products that hit the open market every year. Each product explains that they have the ability to help you stop smoking. Most of these products end up not lasting because they do not do what they claim. Every once and while, an actual product does come along that helps people quit. One of these products was called the E-Cigar. However, breaking new discoveries show that they actually are more harmful than good for you.

The FDA has recently discovered that E-Cigars are bad for your health. The expensive gadgets, often sold for around $200, have been linked to actually being more unhealthy than the real thing. This is because the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation discovered a long list of issues with the product. I am going to try to sum up this information the best that I can for you.

Believe it or not, E-Cigars have one percent of something known as diethylen glycol in them (Engadget, 2010). This is something that is an active ingredient in antifreeze. As well all may know, antifreeze is highly toxic to humans and should not be digested. They also found tobacco nitrosamines. This is quite shocking because users are actually trying to quite anything related to tobacco, but are being exposed to it at the same time.

One of the most shocking results was the discovery of nicotine in almost every single electronic cigarette that was tested. I find this appalling because many of the E-Cigars advertise that they contain absolutely no nicotine what so ever. It is amazing to discover that they have been getting away with doing the exact opposite. Consumers who have been trying to quit have been exposed to the nicotine without even knowing, making them more reliant on the E-Cigar than they once thought.

What these results show us is that the companies manufacturing the electronic cigarettes have been creating horrible products. These products are also often marketed to the youth of our society. It appears that whomever makes these products has actually been ignoring the health of consumers and worsening their addictions in the process. They end up wasting even more money on a product that claims will help them stop spending money on their addiction. I have to say that this is amazing to think of.

There has yet to be a decision by the FDA on what they plan to do next. We can only hope that the FDA acts fast and requires these companies to either fix their products or no longer be able to sell them to consumers. I advise anyone who has considered or currently uses these products to stop using them until more information become available. Why worsen your health when the goal is to better it with the right product choices.

My sources:

(1) FDA, http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm173222.htm, 2009. (Entire Article)

(2) Engadget, http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/23/e-cigarettes-contain-carcinogens-and-toxins-after-all-fda-warns/, 2010.