All the same

Heating tobacco is not more harmless than ordinary cigarettes

Kirill Stasevich, "Science and Life"

Electronic cigarettes are often called a harmless alternative to conventional cigarettes, but lately we have been hearing more and more that e-cigarettes are not so harmless: they can harm lung immunity, and "electronic" nicotine acts on DNA, just like regular. (However, electronic cigarettes, apparently, really help to quit smoking.)

But in addition to vaping devices, there is also a tobacco heating technology, and they also say about it that it is more harmless than ordinary smoking. Tobacco does not burn, does not carbonize, but heats up to a certain temperature at which nicotine is already released from it, but other substances that are more harmful and aggravate addiction remain in tobacco. 

However, back in 2016, researchers from the Cochrane (or Cochrane) Collaboration (an international non-profit organization that studies the effectiveness of medical technologies) published a paper stating that there is no clear evidence that alternative ways of smoking (let's call them that) are safer than conventional cigarettes or pipes. Gradually, other studies appeared, the authors of which expressed doubts about the harmlessness of tobacco heating, and one of them was an article published recently in ERJ Open Research (Sohal et al., IQOS exposure impairs human airway cell homeostasis: direct comparison with traditional cigarette and e-cigarette).

Researchers from the University of Tasmania, the University of Sydney and the Indian National Institute of Pharmacy experimented with epithelial and muscle cells from the human respiratory tract. Epithelial cells are the first to encounter various substances that enter our lungs along with air, and the smooth muscle cells of the respiratory tract support their structure, so that problems that may arise due to smoking in one way or another will most likely be associated with these cells.

Epithelial and muscle cells were treated with smoke from ordinary cigarettes and steam from vaping and heated tobacco. All three types of smoke turned out to be toxic, but if vaping vapor had a bad effect on cells in high concentrations, then the smoke from ordinary cigarettes and from heated tobacco turned out to be poisonous at low concentrations, too. 

In general, the authors of the article believe that this method of smoking is not safer than conventional cigarettes and can lead to the same problems: obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, etc. Here, of course, more research is needed, both experimental and based on medical statistics. 

However, it is worth adding that other experts commenting on this article on the portal of the European Lung Foundation (New heated tobacco device causes the same damage to lung cells as e-cigs and smoking) say that even in the studies of tobacco companies themselves, which they conduct on rats, after switching from conventional cigarettes to heating devices, there is no there is no improvement in the lungs.

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