Smokers Can Save 86 Million Years of Life By Switching To Vaping, Says Study

According to recent research, if the estimated 6.6 million smokers in the U.S. were to switch to vaping, they could increase their cumulative lifespan by as much as 86 million years. And according to the scientists who conducted this study, this is only a very conservative estimate. Worst case scenario is that only 1.6 current smokers might be able to make the switch permanently, which would only result in about 20.8 million years of additional life. The vaping study was conducted by a team of forward-thinking scientists from the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. It was funded by the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network in accordance with the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Entitled Tobacco smokers could gain 86 million years of life if they switch to vaping, the findings are readily available for review via the Georgetown University and Science Daily websites. Led by Dr. David Levy, Professor of Oncology at Georgetown Lombardi, the research team of ten investigators took several factors into consideration, including the already-known-though-minimal negative health effects of electronic cigarettes, the documented averages of smoking cessation success rates via vaping, and even the possible increases in teen vaping over the next fifty years. What the scientists discovered is that not only will smokers who switch to vaping live longer, they will likely also lead happier and more robust lives in the long term. Reductions in pain and suffering from smoking related illnesses will be an invaluable reward as well as the significant financial savings in associated healthcare costs. Meanwhile, the family and loved ones of the currently-smoking population will also reap noteworthy health benefits in the form of decreased exposure to second-hand smoke, which might save millions more American lives and perhaps billions more dollars in healthcare costs over the next ten years alone. But for this plan to be successful, the Georgetown team claims that federal public health agencies must first get on board the vaping bandwagon. "The 2014 U.S. Surgeon General Report recommended an endgame strategy for the country's tobacco epidemic, but no additional strategy was laid out other than the current status quo tobacco control policies." "Old policies need to be supplemented with policies that encourage substituting e-cigarettes for the far more deadly cigarettes." "FDA Commissioner [Scott] Gottlieb recently outlined a strategy of reducing the nicotine content in cigarettes and a harm reduction approach to e-cigarettes. These approaches are right on track. While we know less about nicotine reduction than the other more traditional policies, the evidence to date indicates that this approach also holds promise, especially if smokers are encouraged to switch to e-cigarettes." Dr. Levy is referring to Scott Gottlieb, the new Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who has recently announced plans to research the possibility of regulating the nicotine content of combustible cigarettes. He has also simultaneously announced a nearly 5-year delay in the implementation of the Pre-Market Tobacco Applications (PMTA) process for the controversial FDA deeming regulations of the Obama Era. It is these regulations which pose an ever-present threat of potentially wiping out nearly 99.9 percent of vaping industry in the United States by 2022.