Are electronic cigarettes really any safer than smoking? A study that looked at the amount of cancer-causing chemicals in smoker's bodies suggests yes.
"Less than half of current smokers in the UK believe that e-cigarettes are less harmful," says Lion Shahab, at University College London. His team has screened urine and saliva samples from 181 people, looking for chemicals known to be linked to cancer. "What we found is that using e-cigarettes alone results in very low exposure to toxins and carcinogens," said Shahab.
Compared with people who were currently smokers, the team found that former smokers who had been vaping only, for six months or more, had very low levels of some of the worst carcinogens found in tobacco smoke. NNAL, a chemical heavily linked to lung cancer, was 97.5 per cent lower in former smokers who now only vaped, compared with the average smoker.
The researchers said the findings provided strong reassurance that vaping is safer than smoking. "I would bet my house on e-cigarettes being substantially safer than smoking," said Robert West, another of the researchers from University College London.
But some researchers are still sceptical of the safety of e-cigarattes. Last week, a separate study warned that vaping could raise the risk of heart disease.
West said that ultimately, epidemiological studies like those that showed that smoking caused lung cancer will provide the best evidence on e-cigarettes, but that such data would not be available for another 20 years or so.
Read more: Smoke without fire: What's the truth on e-cigarettes?