Vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking cigarettes, according to UK health

Chief executive of the British Dental Health Foundation, Dr Nigel Carter, said: “We are very happy that smoking rates in the UK are in a steady decline but more attention is needed to bring a stop to this deadly habit”.

Global Positioning System and other health service providers are now able to prescribe several different stop-smoking treatments, including patches, but they are not allowed to prescribe or even recommend e-cigarettes as none of the products on the market are licensed for medicinal use.

But she added: “The review doesn’t say there is no risk, rather that they should be seen as part of the harm reduction strategy for people who are smokers and want to quit”.

Debates over e-cigarettes’ appeal to youths has caused some controversy.

The latest report from Public Health England suggests they are less harmful to health than smoking, but the short and long-term effects of using e-cigarettes – “vaping” – are not yet known.

Bauld also said: “We recognize the potential benefits for e-cigarettes in helping large numbers of people move away from tobacco”.

Public Health England (PHE) professor Kevin Fenton said in a statement.

An independent review has estimated e-cigarettes are at least 95 per cent less harmful than smoking tobacco. Only 2% of young people are regular users, the study said.

Teenagers who used electronic cigarettes were more likely to smoke cigarettes, cigars or hookahs than classmates who had never tried the devices, a new study finds.

That’s the verdict of a report out today commissioned by Public Health England (PHE) into vaping, the alternative to smoking.

What is concerning, notes PHE, is that almost half the population (44.8%) don’t realise e-cigarettes are much less harmful than smoking.

The study has supported the belief that e-cigarettes use is linked to the increased risk of combustible tobacco product.

The battery-powered devices, which simulate the feeling of smoking but with nicotine inhaled in a vapour, could be a “game changer in public health”, according to study co-author Professor Ann McNeill of King’s College London.

It found that about one in 20 adults use e-cigs and they were used nearly exclusively by smokers or ex-smokers.