E-cigarettes safer than smoking - Study

A new study based in the UK has found that consuming e-cigarettes is far safer than smoking tobacco cigarettes.

The research found that people who switched from smoking regular cigarettes to e-cigarettes or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) such as gum or patches for at least six months had much lower levels of toxins cancer-causing substances in their bodies and urine than those who continued to smoke.

According to Euromonitor International, E-cigarettes, which heat nicotine-laced liquid into vapour, have grown into an $US8 billion-a-year market, - three times more than that of NRT products.

They are, however, still dwarfed by a tobacco market estimated by Euromonitor to be worth around $US700 billion.

Several questions concerning their long-term safety and worry that they may act as a "gateway" to taking up conventional cigarettes exists. 

The study also found that those who used e-cigarettes or NRT but did not completely quit smoking did not show the same drop in toxin levels.

According to researchers, this underlined that a complete switch was needed to get the long-term health benefits of quitting tobacco.

The World Health Organisation reported that tobacco is the world's biggest preventable killer, with a predicted cumulative death toll of a billion by the end of this century if current trends continue.

The research is published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.