The disease continues
According to the US National Institutes of Health, quitting smoking reduces cardiovascular disease incidents by half in the first year and after 10 years of quitting, the risk is only about the same as in people who have never smoked.
However, the rate of successful smoking cessation globally is quite low. According to the research team of Dr. Cristian Zamora and colleagues working at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (New York, USA), only 18% of smokers with cardiovascular disease in the period 2013 - 2014 have successfully quit smoking in the period 2016 - 2018.
Domestic health experts also shared that there are patients who have a rather serious illness but still do not stop taking medicine despite being advised, explained and provided with free treatment support solutions.
Cigarette smoke contains more than 6,000 chemicals, including about 100 carcinogens and smoking-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), asthma, etc.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smokers are 15-30 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. Specifically, a non-smoker (wife, child, others) living with a smoker has a 20-30 increased risk of developing lung cancer due to exposure to smoke levels in the environment.
In particular, smoking is a serious risk factor for COPD patients, leading to 3 million deaths and the fourth leading cause of all deaths worldwide.
Need to reduce the harmful effects when not yet eliminated
The situation of "easy to suck, difficult to remove" has been a headache for public health experts around the world for many years. Because, in addition to medically supportive methods that help gradually eliminate nicotine, quitting smoking also requires a strong will from the smoker. This is a barrier because in reality, despite knowing the harm, the majority of smokers continue to smoke for many reasons. Therefore, health organizations and experts around the world believe that there should be alternatives at a time when smokers cannot quit smoking by will, rather than pursuing the ideal of "zero smoking" for centuries.
Accordingly, the scientific research of new generation tobacco products has been participated by many health organizations from advanced countries for the past two decades.
New generation cigarettes, also known as non-smoked cigarettes or "technology" cigarettes, are typically electronic cigarette products, heated tobacco products (hot tobacco products), snus tobacco products, etc. These are products that have been scientifically proven to eliminate smoke from the combustion reaction in the process of providing nicotine to users.
Therefore, these products have a much lower harmful content than cigarettes. This is very meaningful because the lower content of harmful substances makes the risk of health-related diseases, even if not completely eliminated, lower. This has been found in scientific studies to date.
Specifically, some studies show that the risk of cancer for heated tobacco products will be 1/100,000, three levels lower than that of regular cigarettes.
In the European Cardiovascular Association (ESC) Journal of Cardiovascular Practice, Dr. Dimitris Richter - a Cardiologist who supports the harm reduction approach also cited scientific data on the harm reduction of heated tobacco and e-cigarettes. Accordingly, research shows that all new tobacco products have health effects, including cardiovascular health, however, they are less harmful than regular cigarettes.
Research shows that heated tobacco products contain significantly less toxic substances than cigarettes. Harmful and potentially harmful ingredients are measured with aerosol gas, including carcinogens, harmful effects on cardiovascular health, reproductive health, development and respiratory system (based on a list published by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2012), reducing the average of more than 90% of the levels in cigarette smoke.
The study also reiterates that some non-smoking devices are now approved for sale in the United States because the manufacturer has proven that they are less harmful than conventional cigarettes. After reviewing based on strict scientific verification through the Business License Application (PMTA) with the exposure Reduction (MRTP) indication, this agency determined that granting this product a right to circulate in the US market is appropriate to protect public health because, based on the main assessment, this product emits some toxic substances at a lower level than cigarettes.
Experts emphasize that although research shows that the most optimal health impact will be when users start switching from conventional cigarettes to non-smoking products, quitting smoking and nicotine at the same time and completely is the most effective way to improve their health and the community.
