#but i would like it more if Chapel werent Chapel
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yknow i wish i could exaggerate this and say this isnt real but i keep ending up in liminal spaces. i feel like this is the best blog to discuss such things. i dont know why, just feel the need to share my strange experiences! i just found this blog, but it calls to me or something dramatic like that. i dont know, im pretty sure these liminal spaces keep finding me instead of me finding them.
heres a few pictures of the places i go! i kinda wonder how i get here. those first two was when i went to see a movie, and it was kinda full when we got there, but when we left there was no one! no cashiers, and the theater we were in was empty too. the whole town seemed kinda dead at that time, which was strange, cause it was only 8pm.
second one… not sure how i got that, to be honest. i just found a slide. i dont know how far it goes up, or where it leads. you cant see it, but it turns and spirals to some far off second floor.
the warehouse one was when i was trying to find something for someone! was sent to grab something from a warehouse. the warehouse was on the 6th story, strangely. never found what i was looking for.
ooh, that street. that was a strange seat. was trying to find the car after a long night. there was a lot of alleys. that was one of the alleys! no idea where the alleys went to. they simply existed. they are simply alleys.
the last one. i just.. found it like that. it was in an empty room in a church. i didnt really dwell on why it was like that.
theres a lot i didn’t get pictures of, either! that church i mentioned is really strange. me and my sister broke into a room below the chapel once, and the floor was covered in dead bugs. we didn’t get far past it. there were so, so many bugs. that church underground lead to a few other tunnels within it. I’ve gone through those tunnels many times, and I’ve gotten lost in them so many times too. Possibly more than I’ve entered have I gotten lost!
Oh, what else. Ah! I was in the backstage of a theater once. I don’t know what play they were performing. They werent playing it yet, It was a few months before the show. In fact, the show should happen soon! Regardless, I found strange things in the backstages. A lot of black, cardboard cutouts of human shapes. There was a large room, so large. There was some kind of mountain of props, with a stairwell leading up it.
i only have a blurry images of that theater. i don’t actually know why they’re blurry! they just turned out like that. better not to question, huh.
i hope you enjoyed reading this! all of this is real, to be as honest as possible. you can throw away this ask, i don’t mind! or publicize it. i don’t mind either! I just felt that, seeing as you are an archive, it was fitting to settle down my own ‘statement’ or whatever. have fun, and remember! there are liminal spaces around every corner. for some weird reason.
Oh I love those uncanny little corners of the world! I would have climbed up the inside of the slide 👁👁
Liminal spaces are generally in the Stranger/Spiral overlap. It may be an overused word, but nevertheless the feeling remains as strong.
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Just don't even call them the gorn. C'mon.
#not everything has to have name recognition to be interesting#i know nu!trek will never understand this but i can continue griping about it anyway#like was it relevant to the plot even once that la'an was related to Khan??#look i like this show#(mostly. this most recent episode was rough and dumb.)#but i would like it more if Chapel werent Chapel#and if they put the character of Spock to rest for even one half second#and you know if it wasnt a prequel#(no. it wouldn't be an entirely different show if that were the case. cast and crew and plots could stay the same and no one would notice.)#yes. all these complaints have been made before#and i will make them again#star trek#snw
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also physically cant read the spuffy after life reunion scene as anything other than wedding imagery like. spike standing at the threshold / altar all in black, buffy appearing at the top of the steps /aisle in white
the way she's preceded by dawn, like you would be at a wedding by your maid of honor, the way dawn's head is turned to look at her coming down the way you would when a bride enters a chapel
the way the look on spike's face, just awe and disbelief and love, is SO close to the classic 'groom starts crying when he sees bride in her wedding dress' moment .
the way them just looking at each other in profile, holding hands, looks SO much like saying vows. the way there's something about the '147 days yesterday, 148 today' that has this energy of wedding vows. just something so succinct and honest that says i am devoted to you, with everything i've got.
and honestly like the classic wedding vows feel so relevant to where they're at at this stage? like, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part. and there's something about how the scoobies' refrain across the last two episodes and this one is like, buffy is something that can and should be fixed, they actively ask if she's 'broken' at the start of this episode. the way, whether or not they would have accepted that buffy was in heaven, she didnt perceive she could tell them that. the way the vibe is very much in health and not very much in sickness. and she grows closer to spike because he makes room for her to be messy. for her to be sick.
and there's also something about till death do us part because it already has. like. this episode being called "after life" is one of my favorite episode names in the whole show, like this is the afterlife, and we're after the after ife, and we're also like, doing life we shouldn't be doing, because life ended. it was supposed to end, and yet here we are, with more of it. like, the fact that we are starting marriage vows from a place of not even til death can do us part i will be with you forever. the way spike is buffy's shadow, the way spike is the parts of buffy she feels shame about, and that part of her also loves her unconditionally, buffy's own shadow will never stop loving her even though she hates her shadow. buffy's shadow loves her past the point of death, even though being dead itself is one of the things buffy hates her shadow for .
and just !!! the way she comes back and it's like oh, he's been waiting for her, it almost feels like he was made for her, for this moment, where she is undead, and suddenly this undead person who loves her unconditionally is just waiting, right where she left him at the foot of the stairs of her house in "the gift"!!!!!!!
and they werent matched before, not as equals, but they are now, because the death is inside her too. .... literally thinking about "death is your gift" and in some way spike, her own personal dead man, feels like this gift that someone left there for her, that this vampire fell in love with her and didnt realize it and got neutered and learned out to enact morality for her and all those pieces didnt fall into place, into clarity, until right now. there's almost this divine timing to it. like, all those things had to happen so that buffy, coming out of heaven, coming into her new life as someone resurrected, would have spike there, waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, ready to understand her, ready to be devoted to her, past death, and nothing do them part
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1-10 for brand zaw :0?
Putting this under a readmore cuz it ended up being sorta long!
It’s a little unreasonable for everyone in a Middle Ages-esque fantasy to be perfectly literate, and writing with quills was considered legitimate labor! How well can your oc read and/or write? How detailed is their quest log/journal, if they keep one at all?
Already answered!
How educated is your oc? Did their parents teach them, did they have a tutor or were they apprenticed to a master, or did they attend a university? What university? What are they educated in? How long did their education take? (Learned skills like blacksmithing count here too!)
I’m not entirely sure about where/ how Zaw grew up/ was raised yet, so im not sure exactly, but i wanna say he was taught basic restoration and alchemy by whoever raised him, and he taught himself how to fight with staves just from defending himself on the roads in Cyrodiil, but he got a little bit of former teaching in that later on. He also was formally taught some restoration, and he was a healer and alchemist while he lived in the Imperial City.
Does your oc have any kind of crafting skills that either aren’t in-game or don’t have as much importance in-game as they would in real life? (For example, can your oc sew or weave, etc? Are they skilled in any kind of art? Can they make jewelry or work glass? Are they musicians? etc)
Zaw can sew some, but just enough to fix his own clothes. He can carve some, but he just does it for fun/ to pass the time!
What pantheon does your oc worship? If they worship the Cyrodiilic/Imperial pantheon, does that include Talos? If they secretly worship Talos, how do they justify hiding it?
Zaw doesnt specifically worship anything. He doesnt have any connection to the hist, and, though he spent some time as a healer at a chapel in Cyrodiil, he doesnt revere the Imperial pantheon either. He finds it interesting to learn how different cultures worship, and what spins they might have on the same gods. He did do the 7 pilgrimages of the Temple, but that was partially to learn about it, and partially as sorta a Guided Tour through Vvardenfell. He can respect the Tribunal for the good they’ve done and there’s no denying that they have godlike power, but the more he learns about the reason of their godhood and such, the more conflicted he gets. Meeting Vivec was an awkward situation for him.
How religious is your oc? Do they come into conflict with others over their beliefs? If their patron deity told them to do something extremely undesirable or against their moral compass, would they do it? Would your oc sell someone’s soul for a corn chip?
Sorta answered some of this above. He’s just.. not religious. He feels like he sorta has to make his own way in the world, and it’s weird for him to learn that this powerful god-like being is watching over and guiding him [Azura I mean], and he sorta feels like.. he isnt sure if he should be thankful for her help, or if he should hate her for using him against his will for revenge. Usually the latter.
Does your oc have a family of origin? How many members of their FoO are still living? Do they have a good relationship? How much contact does your oc have with their FoO? How in-the-loop is your oc’s FoO about your oc’s being Dragonborn/HoK/Nerevarine?
This is kinda unclear to me atm. Right now i think he was raised in a more imperialized part of Black Marsh/ one of the southern cities in Cyrodiil by an argonian family. [They werent his blood relations though, as he was exiled from his original clan because he was rejected by the Hist.] He learned how to be an argonian and about that culture, but he was far enough towards Cyrodiil that it didn’t matter quite as much that he had no connection to the hist, or that he kind of had trouble.. being an argonian. He left his family and moved to the Imperial City when he came of age, and he wrote to them occasionally. I don’t feel like he was super close to them, like he always sort of felt like he was Wrong and he didn’t really belong there. They don’t really know anything beyond his going to prison. Maybe sometime after Dagoth Ur is defeated, he could visit them.
What social class was your oc born into? Did they change classes at all? How?
His adoptive family weren’t really well-off, but they had enough to get by just fine. When Zaw moved to the Imperial City, it was pretty much the same thing. He made enough money to keep himself housed and fed.
How politically active is your oc? Are they obviously influential, or is their influence more subtle?
ooh shit thats.. tough. Zaw kinda... becomes a figure that can’t help but be political. Doesnt mean he.. likes it, or is any good at it. He completely doesnt know what he’s doing, and so it can be really hard for him to not be manipulated. He ends up kinda.. dropping off the map and living in a yurt on the coast with his boyfriend for a while, maybe.
What unplayable faction would/did your oc join, if any? Why?
He’s not really one for factions! they feel kind of clichey sometimes, so he’d rather sorta do his own thing. He did a couple quests for the mages’ and fighters’ guild though when he first arrived in Vvardenfell.
How trustworthy is your oc? Would they ever change opposing factions?
He’s pretty loyal if he knows one has good intentions. [Another reason factions arent for him; they often have motives that he doesnt care for.]
#brand zaw#asks#honestly? made a lot of this up on the spot!#hes just a dude that wants to do good but he wishes he wasnt forced into a situation where hes super influential and he isnt.. sure whats g#nemettabris
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“Lincopia, you’ve got mail” A Ghost Fanfiction
So: this is a very light kind of fanfiction. It is based on the daily life of the members of the church (ghouls, sisters, brothers, papas, clergy), and it is set at the beginning of era III (yeah I know, sounds nostalgic but I had a lot of this stuff on my mind for months). This is meant to be humorous (with some romance in the future).
Why “You’ve got mail”?
Because this is a fic about the members of the church talking to each other about their sheningans and daily life through messages, WhatsApp or something. There are also some pieces of actual writing here and there, but I have to add, English is not my mothertongue, so I apologize for any mistake, of any kind. I hope to entertain you.
First Chapter.
Enjoy!
- 11.02 am
It wasn't his fault, and that was a concept well punctuated by the calmness of his stride, even if a little stompier than the usual, because, well, being in his actual position made him nervous after all. He already knew it: there was no one left in the chapel. He was late for sure, and the ceremony had gone without him, he, practically an ambassador for their image, and the new pope was around, and Sister Imperator too, probably left scolding at the air since, again, he had not been there.
Special sighed. There he was, hand on the big handle, heavy door ajar.
Just silence and emptiness.
"Uhh... This sucks".
- 1.17 pm
Message from Mist:
Special. Ceremony was great. You'd have loved that. The guy talks more than you do. You'll get along well. He won't skin you alive, don't worry. Probably just make you feel like he could though.
Message from Cat boy:
Very funny. I wasn't fooling around, I had stuff to do, a flight to take. The new Papa was informed. I'll go knock on his door later. But anyways, what did you mean by that? The skinned alive bit?
Message from Mist:
It's okay. He is ok. Well, I mean. He's not his brother.
Message from Cat boy:
Enlightening. Look, can we talk on WhatsApp? Who uses messages nowadays? Just install it. It's useful.
Message from Mist:
We have very different jobs kitty. I don't need WhatsApp. Also weren't you going to knock on a door? What, you need a push?
Message from Cat boy
Thank you very much Mist. On my way.
PS: DO NOT CALL ME THAT.
Message from Mist:
Love you. ♥
PS: bring the lube.
Message from Cat boy:
...what?
- 5.38 pm
When Special walked out the office, he stood still two steps away from the closed door, very quiet, very collected. Looking into space. He looked down at his hands, now full. There were his new robes. Very much practical indeed, and he had already seen them some weeks ago when he himself helped the sewing department, launching some ideas. The mask, that was Omega’s idea.
He looked away, sensing the calmness of the twilight, when people retired from the greenhouses and the fields, the various offices, the library, and showering or maybe simply taking a rest before dinner. He listened to that, the silence, recalling the previous minutes. The man was… he had no idea. Mist had been right. He was not his brother. He seemed cheerful, not so talkative as stated, very stern sometimes, but always with a light, imperceptible smirk at the corner of his lips. He had tried to make him uncomfortable, Special was sure of that. Didn’t even mentioned the fact that he had missed the ceremony for his election. The pope had stared at him, looking him in the eye, with that mix of unknown intentions behind his mismatched ones, and then went straight to business.
So he sighed. Alpha would keep doing interviews, of course. Maybe one, or two every century, by the sound of it. Omega was in charge of a lot of things, and always moving around departments because he was that charismatic. So sure, he would help Special.
But Special was now officially in charge of everything connected to the public. He would be the first in line at concerts, at promotional events, radio interviews, normal interviews, every interview. He would talk to companies, bands touring with them, some lesser members of the clergy (because the big pieces were for Papa, of course) and simply do everything that connected with the core of their engine. He started counting the number of plane he’d have to meet closely from that moment on.
He started walking towards the dormitory, very determined to just fall face deep in the mattress and woke up the next century.
- 7.22 pm
WhatsApp Chat Group: Feel Ya Sista
Lumia: Guuuuurls
Maery: what?
Lumia: Are you done with the dinner? WE HUNGRY HERE, you know.
Ambrosia: oi, let us work. you’re not the only ones that do things in here, YOU KNOW.
Lumia: I plow the soil from which your damn food comes from. Chop chop.
Mitra: SHUT UP LUIAMN
Lumia: ??
Ambrosia: do you grow cheese from that soil? ham? entire cows? last time I checked, those grew from the truck of the dairy we actually buy from.
Valeriana: Also, let us work. Cirice told us Papa himself is going to dine with us in the hall tonight. We are pretty under the gun rn.
Lumia: NO WAY.
Maery: eh
Lumia: Wtf is the world going to end, this is a first
Era: my life is going to end.
Lumia: You alright?
Era: No. This morning I noticed a mistake I made on Papa’s alb. Every time he flapped that sleeve a year of life left me. The moment he’s gonna notice he gonna suck my very soul out of me.
Mitra: overreacting
Lumia: What mistake? I saw none
Era: I sewed too tight in a place.
Maery: c’mon
Era: AND THE MITRE TOO. The patch is too much on the right. HE GONNA KILL ME.
Mitra: OVERREACTING
Ambrosia: he’s nice, stop worrying
Era: HE HAS THE SAME BLOOD OF THAT MUSSOLINI IN HIM. HE’S A TICKING BOMB, I TELL YOU.
Valeriana: Girl, you talked to him for 30 seconds.
Era: Is there some wine left yes? Because I need it.
Maery: yeah
Ambrosia: i’m turning off my phone. work. see you all at 8.
Era: Don’t leave me…
Lumia: I’m still here
Lumia: Nope, nevermind, I actually have to go to the toilette
Era: Can’t you bring your phone in there?
Lumia: I use it for music
Maery: era stop, or i’ll send scary omega to your chamber
Era: …that isn’t exactly a threat. I fyou know what I mean…
Valeriana: Lmao.
Rita: uuhhhmmm
Rita: girls
Maery: yeah?
Rita: talking about subtext…
Maery: yeah?
Rita: …is it okay if I say I wanna bang him?
Valeriana: Bang WHO.
Lumia: Omega?
Rita: nope
Ambrosia: RITA NO
Lumia: Werent’ you turning off your phone?
Ambrosia: RITA NO
Ambrosia: NO
Ambrosia: wait AT LEAST a week. Ffs.
Maery: also ew
Rita: ok.
Maery: imam send you scary imperator to your chamber
Era: THAT INDEED IS A THREAT.
Ambrosia: ENDING ALL TRANSMISSIONS, NOW. SEE YOU AT 8. BEHAVE, OK? Y’ALL HEATHENS.
Maery: yes ma’am
Lumia: Toilette
Era: dying
Rita: ok.
Rita: …
Rita: …a week is a lot
Ambrosia: RITA NO
- 8.29 pm
Alpha: Dude, where are you?
- 8.37 pm
Alpha: Seriously.
- 8.43 pm
Alpha: OMEGA the new Papa is here with us. Where the fuck are you?
- 0.31 am
Omega: Bro, I was busy. I am always busy. What’s the matter. Special missed his ceremony, I missed dinner, so the real loss here is that I’m hungry as fuck.
Alpha: What was so important?
Omega: Fucking haunted trees? You know, those who started slapping people with their branches last week? One of them lifted a root and was trying to actually take a step.
Alpha: Are you high?
Omega: I wish I was.
Alpha: SERIOUSLY.
Omega: Look, this place is a mess. We are not just some campy satanists, we attract some attentions.
Alpha: So what, local flora is pissed off because we worship the big bad guy?
Omega: Most likely someone enchanted things. But it’s okay now. I had to work with that nerd of Brother Euthanasia, just because Imperator couldn’t make a bad impression on our CEO.
Alpha: That would explain why she was so edgy all dinner.
Omega: And when exactly she is not.
Alpha: Whatever.
Omega: Besides, was he pissed?
Alpha: He didn’t even notice.
Omega: So what.
Alpha: MAYBE he just looked not pissed.
Omega: Tomorrow I’m gonna buy him flowers and take a knee okay? Or maybe next time I’ll invite fucking trees at our table so we can go all Isengard with that.
Alpha: Dude, chill. Or eat. You’re not yourself when you’re hungry.
Omega: FUNNY.
Alpha: Yeah. Take a rest, you big idiot. Tomorrow we have to do things.
Omega: And don’t I know that.
Alpha: Take a rest. Love you.
Omega: …gay.
Omega: …Love you too.
(All original characters belong to the band Ghost.
OCs are mine.
Feedback and critics [corrections too if needed] are always appreciated!)
#the band ghost#ghost band#papa emeritus iii#papa emeritus ii#nameless ghouls#fanfiction#sisters of sin#brothers of sin#clergy#ocs#humor#probably some romance in the future#and maybe some actual plot#but very light for now#but the format will be the same#papa emeritus i#and maybe some papa zero
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Gamer Culture: beyond toxic ***rant***
I have been playing video games religiously since I was 2 years old playing my brother's NES. I've owned every console and handheld since, except the Sega CD and GameBoySP. I remember playing online for the first time with Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast, Socom 2 on PS2, Mech-assault and dozens of other titles on the xbox. I used to have suvh great fun playing games with friends and online. I reveled in any opportunity to make good friends online because back then we werent as connected of a society. But in recent years I've noticed that I play less and less; I've all but stopped playing online. It's not because I got married, have a kid on the way etc. No this change in my habit has been this way since 2013; long before I met my wife. I never noticed until Mass Effect: Andromeda came out. I was finally then able to put it into words. ME:A was a big dropoff from previous entries in the series, but my reasons for disliking it were innocent and professional. No, the realization came when I saw my fellow gamer's reaction to the title. I had no idea that being "too diverse" and having "too many females" would be legitimate reasons for hating a game. I even saw all the crap they were giving one of the lead developers on Twitter. I realized just how toxic the culture truly was. It goes beyond poorly supervised children blaring racial slurs and obscenities. It surpassed the creepy "are there any girls here" messages and callouts. The vast majority of gamers just so happened to be the very type of people that I had been trying to mentally escape from. It's ruined many titles for me, I'm a straight, black, atheist male raised in a very religious family and I could not wrap my head around such behavior until I flashed back to my early Army days.
I realized that gamers have very similar social lives. At my peak, I would play until 2-3 in the morning; all day and night on weekends. So I pulled up some profiles on steam and looked at play hours for a game I loved a lot, Dragons Dogma. Collectively over the course of year on PS4 and PC I must have put 3-400 hours into that game. I looked at others playtimes and saw similar numbers. I was glad to know that I wasnt alone in my lengthy hours. Even in the barracks, other Soldiers spent just as much time gaming as I did. Maybe I can speak from my own experience because it reflects theirs from a logistical standpoint.
I had the same bad attitude towards women and even shouted my fair share of expletives over a microphone. And I can trace that inner rage back to one thing; I was lonely. I had friends, went out drinking, sporadically got laid, but without a steady social life I found that I stayed angry and I let it all out on some stranger halfway across the globe. I even resented women to some degree for all the emotional pain I had endured from those breaks that I'd pursue a relationship. I can remember so many conversations where a whole GTAV room would join in on bashing females as a whole for being "attention seeking" , "sluts", "Gold diggers" etc. And no one ever stopped the locker room talk.
I felt like I was in Middle School again, hanging out at the nerd table while the pretty girls made fun of us or ignored us. It's why I made so many changes in my life. I didn't quit gaming, but learned to value the time of another person (a woman). I learned that if I just got out there and talked with people that I wouldn't feel so isolated.
I have many nerd friends, some I consider to be family. And I see so many recurring themes that it breaks my heart. A lot of gamers suffer from "friend zoning" and it makes them very bitter and depressed. I've been "friend zoned" so many times that it got to the point where I said 'no more'. Whenever a woman said "I think we should just be friends" I cut contact. It was a bit brusque of me, but I was on a journey of healing my battered heart; I didn't need another reminder of that repeating pattern. A woman reading this may be thinking "how is that my problem?" It isn't, you aren't obligated in any way to date someone just because he's/she's a hateful piece of crap. I'll never advocate something so sexist. I will however tell you this: my wife would have never dated me if her dog hadn't distracted her and accidentally swiped right. Instead of brushing me off or playing it down, she went on that first date with an open mind; genuinely curious to see what I was about. 1 year later, we've moved to a different country in a two story house, amazing dog, and a baby on the way. If you have expectations about anyone or anything, if you have this picture of your perfect guy/gal; you're setting yourself up for failure. Fly blind, you will have much more fun.
The second source of toxic gamers is undoubtedly a lack of exposure. You can read about other communities and cultures all day and still not know how to properly interact with them. To many gamers, their most intimate experience dealing with other races or religions is the chapelle's show. I can honestly say that the reason we hear so much slander over the microphone is because these people have either had their feelings hurt, or simply have this sense of superiority. They stereotype very quickly. I speak with great diction because my teachers and parents invested a lot of time cultivating my mind. You would never guess that I am of African descent. When I tell people online, they always get quiet; my guess would be because they were very close to saying something prejudicial. This goes back to traditional cliques. Groups of friends are rarely diverse in my experience. Out of our nerd group of 8, only 3 of us were black. And many get so used to us wearing that mask that makes us oblivious that we don't call attention to the "jokes" that get told. I'm here to tell you that every racially charged joke cut each of us very deeply. Here we have the one group of people I have something in common with and they're treating my skin color or racial stereotypes as though they weren't actively used to injure us. That is just as painful because we all have that fear of being alone and no one wants to lose friends because you value something differently.
My advice to anyone with a gamer/recluse friend is as follows. Don't let them get away with ignorant remarks; let them know that the things they say carry weight regardless of how they feel Bout them. Include them in activities; the bar is not a good means to socialize someone who cuts themselves off, invite them to a dinner party or to go bowling once a week. The guys that make the gaming community toxic aren't evil people, they just need someone to reach out and show them the world from a different set of eyes; they need a friend/lover/brother. If I can turn into a moderately functional human being, anyone can.
#mass effect andromeda#pewdiepie#call of duty#gaming#racism#sexism#battlefield#ign game reviews#growth#love#romance#playstation#xbox one#psn#steam#overwatch
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ALL THE ASKS
Ok sure but this’ll be long so a readmore it is:-
Kirk: Tell me about a time you had to take a leadership role.
A few times. I ended up organising quite a lot of stuff with the costume team with my last couple of shows. I quite often end up taking on leadership roles at events and things because nobody... seems... to want to? And so stuff doesnt get done and we talk around things until I or someone else goes “Ok here is what we are doing.”
I think I did it most on the first show I worked on, and I hated it. I basically kept chasing people up on what they were doing and what they should be doing and kept snapping at one girl to leave jobs that werent hers well enough alone. (She kept fucking up the organisation of the costume rail).
Spock: What kind of sacrifices have you made for others?
I left university for a year to look after my mother... despite the fact she would do a lot of shitty things. I’ve... sacrificed a lot for other people really but I dont know...
I’ve lived to regret a lot of them.
Uhura: Talk about the moment you were the most proud of yourself.
Honestly getting my 98% on my graded unit final this year.
This represents so much. 3 years ago I was depressed, directionless, I’d been unable to work because I was so emotionally low and trying to deal with my alcoholic mother. And then 2 years ago people told me to get out. People told me to study to do something, to escape.And... I did?
I haven’t done well in exams since high school when my cousin died and everything went to shit. But this year I got 98% on a unit in the highest level qualification I’ve done to date. I’m still depressed, I still struggle but my god look at me now. Im taking care of me.
Bones: Describe your closest relationships.
Complicated haha.
Jem - my partner is great. They understand me perfectly, excellent dinosaur nerd. We might not always agree, but we also agree that might be a good thing. We can talk about our problems and thats more than I could ask for.My family - do not get on with me a lot. Its still a relationship and an important one even if its not a good one. They shaped who I am and I just hope im not too much like their negatives. If anything I want to take my mothers (occasional) open-mindedness, My fathers self reflection and my brothers desire to learn and understand all people and things.
My friends - I have a few, and the ones Im closest to should know who they are. Im very grateful to them for being there. For understanding. I don’t know where I’d be without friends like that, old and new.
Sulu: What is your relationship like to the world around you?
The world is a struggle but I’ll get there.
Chekov: How do you support your friends?
I try to be there, ask what they need and give it to them if I can. Im not always good at that. I like to find solutions and a lot of people dont want them... I’m working on that.
Scotty: Talk about a time you succeeded (or failed) in fixing a major problem.
I’m really not sure. On the last show run I did for class the dryer wouldn’t dry the clothes in time for the next show. But we uh... didnt fix that problem. We tried, I got us a bunch of hairdryers and we had a go at doing them that way. Tried pressing them dry and all sorts but uh... nope, actors went on stage damp. They were nice enough about it but I still felt bad ^^
Chapel: What have you gained, or what consequences have you faced, from pursuing your passions?
My passions so far have been “Get out of that house your parents live in” and so far I’ve succeeded. The cost? Im constantly looking for places to spend the holidays - friends who might be willing to take me because Im terrified of spending stuff like christmas alone...
Rand: How do you stay positive in bad situations?
Hahahahahahahahaah I dont.
seriously tho the worse the situation the better I am at dealing with it. I sorta... shut off emotionally and get through whatever needs getting through. I got hit by a car and I handled that. I lived in an abusive household and just emotionally switched off. Its immediately after the bad situation that I struggle.
Enterprise: Tell me when/where you felt most at-home, like you belonged.
When I get there I’ll tell you. I cried last christmas because my friends made me feel so welcome... they just accepted me into their home, let me sit with them while the kids unwrapped presents. It... was so nice...
Khan: Tell me about a person you would do anything to protect.
I’m glad to say I’ve not been in a situation where I’d need to. I trust the people I care about, I’ve seen them protect themselves. I dont want to imagine a situation where the cant and I somehow can. The people i love are far stronger than I could ever hope to be.
Corbomite: What's the worst lie you've ever told?
“Seriously it doesnt hurt too bad I just tripped down some stairs.” ugh gives me shivers.
Deneva: Have you ever lost a loved one? How did you grieve?
My cousin died when I was 14. He was more like a brother to me really. I remember when I was told that he was dying and I literally couldn’t breathe. I vaguely remember someone holding onto my shoulders while I gasped in air. I then didnt cry until his funeral where I sobbed like a baby.Everything is a blur after that. Time got muddled in my head. I dunno if I ever stopped grieving completely. Still hurts like hell.
Empath: Talk about the time you needed someone the most. Did they come through for you?
Honestly people are there for me a lot, and they always try even if they dont succeed. But I needed someone through my transition and it just... didnt happen. I didnt need anyone specific but I needed or wanted SOMEONE.
I’ve done this alone, I’ll continue doing it alone and that hurts. But I know it hurts people like Jem too. I know they want to be there almost as much as I want them to be. Sometimes its not a matter of how much we want things though.
Psi 2000: What are you really like, under everything?
Insecure, self reflective though not really sure if my analysis is correct. I think a lot of what you see is what you get tbh?
Horta: What do you do when you feel lonely and isolated?
I message everyone I know on facebook, skype and tumblr then hope someone will answer. Theres about 3 people maybe 4 who I know I can be blunt with. who I can just say “Im lonely please pay attention to me” It helps a lot. When that fails though I just try to sleep.
Talos IV: What would you do if someone you loved betrayed you?
Been there done that, numb to it now. It hurts but I’ve learned you can move on, learned you can meet someone knew who you can love and be loved by for a while (not saying romantically here). Losing people is a lot less frightening.
Organia: How do you react when you're proven wrong?
Depends on how? Attitude says a lot. If I’m politely corrected I might be interested and want to know more. If its super critical and about why Im a failure in every capacity I’ll be equally antagonistic.
Farragut: Has something ever happened to you that you just can't let go?
Physical abuse, my cousin dying. Im not good at letting go of trauma. I wont ever forget that my little cousin harry looks up to me the same way I used to look up to David though. I strive to be what David was to me, for Harry, as much as I can.
Shore Leave: Describe your ideal life.
Somewhere to live, financial stability - moderate happiness and peace.
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Sunday was a step counters dream!! Couldn't tell you what the grand total was but am definitely feeling it!
Church was an interesting topic today. Referring to in everything you do, you should give praise to the lord. Although the pastor did a decent job of explaining the concept he forgot to mention a few parts. A key component is integrity and standing up for what you believe in even when no one is looking. By mainitaining your work ethic even when the boss isn't there lends to your faithfulness and belief that even though your boss isn't watching... God is which is who you should be trying to impress. Are any of us perfect, no! Do we all slack yes but this was the concept of today's message. I really liked the music today though i caught on to the melody and rhythm rather quickly and felt pretty confident in my ability. There were a couple times i noticed my voice carrying throughout the congregation and got kind of embarrassed... oh well! Over it now! But as I was leaving one of the pinnacle people in the church who has like eight kids walked by me as I was walking out of the chapel and was like Leave! This really threw me off and kept me from staying for the cookout afterward.
Although I could painfully tell I obviously didn't sleep through the night last night and it really bothers me! But I've gotten to the point where I'm just no longer going to allow something I have no control over or no memory of to effect me on such a negative note. Although its heinous and really makes me feel in adequate the things others do all i have is my reaction. By allowing them to not only steal my sleep but continuously pursue deformation of my character during those times is one thing. To let them steal my happiness and opportunities to create connections with people while in a conscious state because im so disgusted with myself and the sheer uncontrollable feeling of not knowing what happened and what was actually done is a little unnerving to say the least. But over the last couple days I just told myself I'm not going to allow it to control both the conscious and subconscious parts of my day. Its literally insane and the only way people will see who I actually am is if I show them... whether I'm in the mood to or not... one song I relate to with this is My Stress by; NF but I also think I need to get out of my head and have fun as well! Main reason I've just decided to stop letting it put me in paralysis.
All they want to do is take away my happiness... and at this point the simplest things make me happy!! Food for my stomach and food for my soul pretty much sums things up. Another song that really made me think today was the first verse of man on the moon by; KidCudi. I mean lets think about it. If I were a worthless scumbag as I am portrayed to be or I had nothing to offer anyone or they werent in some way jealous of me and what i do have to offer do you really think I would continuously have to go through this?? Fuck No! Shit to be honest if I was any less of a man i probably would have killed myself by this point.
I finally figured out the saying for the state im in but I won't give it away hahaha its really just a play on the states name that gives understanding about why men should love it here so much and why i really have been dropping the ball! IDIOT!! I literally am! One thing I explained to a co worker the other day was I accel in things that most people find to be difficult or incomprehensible... but i fail in the daily tasks that come as second nature to the rest of the population... i can't tell you why or how I wish it were different for me does my past maybe have something to do with it...? It quite possibly could, but for me to use that as an excuse is weak and sad. Tomorrows a new day and hopefully I'm not dead but ill put fourth some genuine effort I just have blocks in my mind. When I try to be clever in my comments to women for instance this woman said it was her birthday i asked if she had gotten her spankings yet hahah then I asked her about the song by Jeremih. She didn't get it or just chose not to acknowledge it but at that point lost interest... i wish I could just see it done and know that what I'm watching is how it needs to be done so I could make it my own.
I do understand the difference between life and school and I really accel in school. I think its because in school you get the lesson and then the test.. but in life you get the test and then the lesson. Although I understand the lesson each time I fuck up and freeze I still don't know how to make it different in the future. Or how I should go about things to get a more favorable outcome. I can assure you of one thing I'm not lazy by any means my work ethic is strong and when it comes to things I'm not good at or can't accomplish i usually am the last to give up! But this scenario eludes me not mention past experiences and possible PTSD but I just feel safer not putting myself in a situation where I might get fired, kicked out of college, or worse yet end up in jail... if you haven't gathered by this point I'm horrible at reading signs and interpreting social cues so maybe a class on that would be beneficial for me if you know anyone teaching!! Or a couple dudes and a couple chicks interacting while somebody sits next to me and explains whats going on as it unfolds between the men and women flirting back and forth... just saying I know how I learn and this would really be beneficial for me. I mean it is first semester... teach me!!
All in all I had a good day did i let a lot slip through my fingertips... probably. I just suck really bad and kind of give up at times. And if I'm going to have to deal with my night terrors if I don't get laid by another means... well like explained earlier I've grown numb to it all and refuse to allow it to control my life any further so bring it on you sick fucks because I don't remember it and if it were as you say it is and I enjoyed it then it wouldn't hurt after every encounter like it does making it really hard to cope with But if i were "on" gay I would relax and enjoy it... a woman told me this after telling her a condensed version of what is wrong with me. Just saying ill continue being malable in order to learn and no longer will isolate and shut down caused from this sick life experience. Thanks for reading today was a good day! No home run but a GOOD DAY! 🤙
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What do e-cigarettes do to your lungs?
When e-cigarettes hit the market they seemed like a godsend to smokers (and maybe even curious non-smokers): all the enjoyment of smoking cigarettes and none, or at least far fewer, of the health risks. Youre only breathing in water vapor and pure nicotine, the ads said.
But have those claims held up since e-cigarettes were introduced to the U.S. and European markets 10 years ago? The science is a bit more complicated than it seems, with scientists doggedly fighting to heavily regulate e-cigarettes, and others touting them as the ultimate smoking cessation device. Who is right?
The Daily Dot dug into the science to try and answer this question. But, spoiler alert: The science behind e-cigarettes is young and inconclusive. They currently are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which essentially allows e-cigarette manufacturers to operate without much oversight on nicotine contents and other chemical components in their e-cigarette liquids. However, the FDA will begin regulating e-cigarettes in August 2016.
Cancers, lung disease, and heart disease all take several years to developpeople havent been using e-cigarettes long enough to develop these diseases. Also, most e-cigarette users (called vapers) are current or former smokers, so it will be hard to parse out whether smoking or vaping was the true culprit of whatever diseases do form. Researchers can study the effects of e-cigarette aerosol in cultured cells and lab animals, but those studies cant definitively tell us what real-world e-cigarette use will look like in the long term. Lastly, several researchers are attempting to answer the question of whether or not e-cigarettes can be used to quit smoking all together. But that question has a complicated, incomplete answer too.
Lets break it down, starting with the physical differences between traditional and e-cigarettes.
Combustion vs. vaporization
Much of what makes traditional cigarettes so dangerous isnt the nicotinenicotine is super addictive, can cause heart disease, but theres very little evidence that it causes cancer. Cigarettes are dangerous because of the smoke itself. Lighting up causes the tobacco leaves and cellulose paper theyre wrapped in to combust. And combustion of plant matter releases several other chemicals: aldehydes, carbon monoxide, free radicals, heavy metalsa combination that can cause not only cancer but lead to heart and lung diseases as well.
E-cigarettes, on the other hand, use a battery to vaporize a mixture of nicotine, glycerol or propylene glycol, and flavorings, depending on the product. Vaporization happens at a much lower temperature than combustion, so it seems reasonable that it wouldnt cause the release of all the same nasties as cigarettes.
“The cancer risk is probably lower than a conventional cigarette, but the effects of the ultrafine particles and the aldehydes are about the same.”
But youre not just breathing in nicotine and water vapor, according to Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.
In the process of heating up you get a lot of aldehydes and the ultrafine particles are themselves dangerous, Glantz told the Daily Dot over the phone. The cancer risk is probably lower than a conventional cigarette, but the effects of the ultrafine particles and the aldehydes are about the same.
The effects of the particulates may include inflammation in the lungs that can cause lung disease over time. One study found that cultured white blood cells exposed to e-cigarette vapor extract released inflammation-causing compounds, suggesting that breathing e-cigarette vapor may have similar effects within the body. Glantz also said that the particulates in both e-cigarette vapor, cigarette smoke, and air pollution can also cause the blood to get sticky, leading to clogged arteries and heart disease.
The preliminary evidence agrees with Glantzs views. According to two reviews, e-cigarette vapor is quite harmful in animal and cell culture studies. However, detractors from e-cigarettes tend to argue that e-cigarettes also release aldehydesbut theres reason to be skeptical, according to the second review. One study found that e-cigarette vapor contained formaldehydethe same probable-cancer-causing chemical used to preserve animals for dissection. However, some argued that the temperature used to create the e-cigarette vapor in that study was too high. Vaping at too-high temperatures causes a phenomenon called a dry puff which is very harsh and unpleasant, as anyone whos ever tried an e-cigarette can tell you.
“Lemme dry puff that real quick” #RealLife
Mansa Musa #LYBB (@EddzSmokesLoud) July 4, 2015
According to a recent study in the journal Addiction, e-cigarettes only release formaldehyde in the dry puff condition.
E-cigarettes are a moving target
In the 10 years theyve been on the market, e-cigarette devices have changed rapidly. The first generation e-cigarettes looked a lot like traditional ones (theyre also known as cigalikes), but werent as good at getting nicotine into the blood as traditional cigarettes.
“Time will tell whether or not that chronic inflammation will lead to disease.”
But the newer generation e-cigarettes deliver nicotine to the bloodstream at levels comparable to regular cigarettes, meaning they can give vapers the same nicotine fix as smokers. This is good news for their potential to help smokers quit smoking. But theres a catch.
Most of the data Ive seen on second and third-generation devices is that they do cause inflammation in the lungs. They do cause a measurable biological response, Robert Teran, lead author of the second review and director of SoM Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill said in a phone interview with the Daily Dot. Time will tell whether or not that chronic inflammation will lead to disease.
Additionally, e-cigarettes introduce a few variables that traditional cigarettes do not. Flavorings are common in e-cigarette liquids. While the chemicals used to create those flavors are all on the FDAs approved list of food additives, pretty much no one has studied the effect of inhaling the vapors of these chemicals, Teran said.
There is one notable exception: diacetyl. Diacetyl is the primary chemical that gives movie theater popcorn its buttery flavor. Its also a byproduct in many other foods: it gives some Chardonnays their signature buttery undertones. If you pick it up in beer, that can also be a sign that your local bar needs to clean the lines in their beer taps.
Its safe to eat, but if you breathe it in it causes bronchiolitis obliterans, otherwise known as popcorn lung, Teran said. And the only reason researchers know about the harmful effects of breathing in diacetyl is because workers in popcorn factories came down with this illness.
But diacetyl isnt just in buttery flavors. Its also in a lot of berry flavorings as well, according to one study found diacetyl in 39 of 51 e-cigarette flavors. However, diacetyl is also present in cigarette smokeat levels higher than those experienced by workers in popcorn factories, according to a 2014 study. So maybe its a wash with diacetyl.
Nonetheless, there are still many compounds in e-cigarette flavorings whose effects on the lungs are still relatively unknown. In fact, Teran believes that e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes might have more differences than similarities, and comparing them to one another might not be the best way to assess e-cigarettes health risks. After all, being safer than smoking is a very low bar to clear.
Teran cited a study from his lab that found vaping was associated with suppression of genes related to the immune system. The researchers even found many suppressed genes in vapers that they didnt find in smokers, suggesting vaping may have some unique effects on the immune system.
The ultimate cessation aid?
To say quitting smoking is hard is an understatement. Nicotine isnt just highly addictive; it can literally change the development of the brain to make people even more dependent on it if they start smoking in their teenswhich is exactly when most smokers start. Smokers looking to quit have a few options: cold turkey, gradually cutting back, using a nicotine replacement therapy, or a drug like Chantix.
Nicotine replacement therapyusing something like the patch or gumhelps smokers get their nicotine fix and taper them off of nicotine while keeping them from smoking. Many people may choose to go these treatments alone by buying the therapies over the counter at the drugstore.
According to a study from the 90s, quit rates for people who do the patch or gum alone, without the help of their doctor, vary between around 15 percent after six weeks, to less than 10 percent at 24 weeks follow-up. But subsequent reviews of that study and others like it that attempted to gain real world evidence for replacement therapies found their methodologies to be flawed.
Another review of nicotine replacement therapies found that people may be more successful if they had behavioral support such as a hotline to call or group therapy sessions. But quit rates are still low. Replacement therapy only enhances someones chances of quitting by 50 to 70 percent, according to the review. So if someone goes cold turkey without any support and has an 8 percent chance of success, using replacement therapy is only going to make their chances marginally greaterand thats only to smokers who are very highly motivated to quit.
Its unclear why quit rates are so low with replacement therapy. But part of the issue may be that smoking is more than just nicotine: its the ritual and social aspects too. E-cigarettes provide many of those same comforts, so some researchers believe they can be highly effective quitting tools.
I think someone specifically comes and seeks treatment, then I would recommend Chantix or nicotine replacement treatment, possibly supplemented by e-cigarettes, Peter Hajek, Director of Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, told the Daily Dot in a phone interview. So many smokers only manage to stop smoking when they try a few of these e-cigarette models.
Hajek was involved in a 2014 review of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. He and his colleagues found that e-cigarettes containing nicotine were more helpful than e-cigarettes without, but they couldnt determine if they were any better than the patch. Nonetheless, Hajek and colleagues in the Royal College of Physicians now urge smokers to make the switch to e-cigarettes, citing that they are 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes.
“They got six people together, several of whom had financial conflicts of interest, got around a table and scratched their head and scratched their butt and got that 95 percent number.”
How they got to that number is unclear. When the Daily Dot asked Hajek about it directly, he cited the many known toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke that lead to heart disease, lung disease, and cancer.
These chemicals are either totally absent or present in only minuscule amounts in e-cigarette vapor, Hajek said Chemicals exclusive to vaping may yet be found to also pose some risks, but this is unlikely to be more than only a small fraction of the risks of smoking.
But 95 percent less harmful seems like a long shot to Glantz.
The 95 percent number was simply made up, he said. If you go back and find the paper that comes up with that number. It has exactly no actual evidence in it. They got six people together, several of whom had financial conflicts of interest, got around a table and scratched their head and scratched their butt and got that 95 percent number.
Glantz thinks, if anything, e-cigarettes are about a third to a half as dangerous. Much of Glantzs work has also been to disprove the idea that e-cigarettes are useful smoking cessation tools when used alone. Earlier this year, he and his colleague published an analysis of several studies in the Lancet that e-cigarette users were 28 percent less likely to quit smoking than those who didnt use e-cigarettes.
The most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking. If you were a cigarette smoker and you switched entirely from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, it would be less dangerous, Glantz said. The majority of the data suggests most people are dual users.
He added that he believes e-cigarettes have definitely helped some people quit. But he thinks that they would only work for a minority of smokers.
Taber also thinks that e-cigarettes might not be a good cessation tool, but that they are less harmful than traditional e-cigarettes.
If youre smoking cigarettes, going to e-cigarettes is probably better for your health, Taber said. And if youre not smoking anything at all, dont try e-cigarettes and think they wont have an effect on your lungs.
source http://allofbeer.com/2017/07/19/what-do-e-cigarettes-do-to-your-lungs/ from All of Beer http://allofbeer.blogspot.com/2017/07/what-do-e-cigarettes-do-to-your-lungs.html
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What do e-cigarettes do to your lungs?
When e-cigarettes hit the market they seemed like a godsend to smokers (and maybe even curious non-smokers): all the enjoyment of smoking cigarettes and none, or at least far fewer, of the health risks. Youre only breathing in water vapor and pure nicotine, the ads said.
But have those claims held up since e-cigarettes were introduced to the U.S. and European markets 10 years ago? The science is a bit more complicated than it seems, with scientists doggedly fighting to heavily regulate e-cigarettes, and others touting them as the ultimate smoking cessation device. Who is right?
The Daily Dot dug into the science to try and answer this question. But, spoiler alert: The science behind e-cigarettes is young and inconclusive. They currently are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which essentially allows e-cigarette manufacturers to operate without much oversight on nicotine contents and other chemical components in their e-cigarette liquids. However, the FDA will begin regulating e-cigarettes in August 2016.
Cancers, lung disease, and heart disease all take several years to developpeople havent been using e-cigarettes long enough to develop these diseases. Also, most e-cigarette users (called vapers) are current or former smokers, so it will be hard to parse out whether smoking or vaping was the true culprit of whatever diseases do form. Researchers can study the effects of e-cigarette aerosol in cultured cells and lab animals, but those studies cant definitively tell us what real-world e-cigarette use will look like in the long term. Lastly, several researchers are attempting to answer the question of whether or not e-cigarettes can be used to quit smoking all together. But that question has a complicated, incomplete answer too.
Lets break it down, starting with the physical differences between traditional and e-cigarettes.
Combustion vs. vaporization
Much of what makes traditional cigarettes so dangerous isnt the nicotinenicotine is super addictive, can cause heart disease, but theres very little evidence that it causes cancer. Cigarettes are dangerous because of the smoke itself. Lighting up causes the tobacco leaves and cellulose paper theyre wrapped in to combust. And combustion of plant matter releases several other chemicals: aldehydes, carbon monoxide, free radicals, heavy metalsa combination that can cause not only cancer but lead to heart and lung diseases as well.
E-cigarettes, on the other hand, use a battery to vaporize a mixture of nicotine, glycerol or propylene glycol, and flavorings, depending on the product. Vaporization happens at a much lower temperature than combustion, so it seems reasonable that it wouldnt cause the release of all the same nasties as cigarettes.
“The cancer risk is probably lower than a conventional cigarette, but the effects of the ultrafine particles and the aldehydes are about the same.”
But youre not just breathing in nicotine and water vapor, according to Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.
In the process of heating up you get a lot of aldehydes and the ultrafine particles are themselves dangerous, Glantz told the Daily Dot over the phone. The cancer risk is probably lower than a conventional cigarette, but the effects of the ultrafine particles and the aldehydes are about the same.
The effects of the particulates may include inflammation in the lungs that can cause lung disease over time. One study found that cultured white blood cells exposed to e-cigarette vapor extract released inflammation-causing compounds, suggesting that breathing e-cigarette vapor may have similar effects within the body. Glantz also said that the particulates in both e-cigarette vapor, cigarette smoke, and air pollution can also cause the blood to get sticky, leading to clogged arteries and heart disease.
The preliminary evidence agrees with Glantzs views. According to two reviews, e-cigarette vapor is quite harmful in animal and cell culture studies. However, detractors from e-cigarettes tend to argue that e-cigarettes also release aldehydesbut theres reason to be skeptical, according to the second review. One study found that e-cigarette vapor contained formaldehydethe same probable-cancer-causing chemical used to preserve animals for dissection. However, some argued that the temperature used to create the e-cigarette vapor in that study was too high. Vaping at too-high temperatures causes a phenomenon called a dry puff which is very harsh and unpleasant, as anyone whos ever tried an e-cigarette can tell you.
“Lemme dry puff that real quick” #RealLife
Mansa Musa #LYBB (@EddzSmokesLoud) July 4, 2015
According to a recent study in the journal Addiction, e-cigarettes only release formaldehyde in the dry puff condition.
E-cigarettes are a moving target
In the 10 years theyve been on the market, e-cigarette devices have changed rapidly. The first generation e-cigarettes looked a lot like traditional ones (theyre also known as cigalikes), but werent as good at getting nicotine into the blood as traditional cigarettes.
“Time will tell whether or not that chronic inflammation will lead to disease.”
But the newer generation e-cigarettes deliver nicotine to the bloodstream at levels comparable to regular cigarettes, meaning they can give vapers the same nicotine fix as smokers. This is good news for their potential to help smokers quit smoking. But theres a catch.
Most of the data Ive seen on second and third-generation devices is that they do cause inflammation in the lungs. They do cause a measurable biological response, Robert Teran, lead author of the second review and director of SoM Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill said in a phone interview with the Daily Dot. Time will tell whether or not that chronic inflammation will lead to disease.
Additionally, e-cigarettes introduce a few variables that traditional cigarettes do not. Flavorings are common in e-cigarette liquids. While the chemicals used to create those flavors are all on the FDAs approved list of food additives, pretty much no one has studied the effect of inhaling the vapors of these chemicals, Teran said.
There is one notable exception: diacetyl. Diacetyl is the primary chemical that gives movie theater popcorn its buttery flavor. Its also a byproduct in many other foods: it gives some Chardonnays their signature buttery undertones. If you pick it up in beer, that can also be a sign that your local bar needs to clean the lines in their beer taps.
Its safe to eat, but if you breathe it in it causes bronchiolitis obliterans, otherwise known as popcorn lung, Teran said. And the only reason researchers know about the harmful effects of breathing in diacetyl is because workers in popcorn factories came down with this illness.
But diacetyl isnt just in buttery flavors. Its also in a lot of berry flavorings as well, according to one study found diacetyl in 39 of 51 e-cigarette flavors. However, diacetyl is also present in cigarette smokeat levels higher than those experienced by workers in popcorn factories, according to a 2014 study. So maybe its a wash with diacetyl.
Nonetheless, there are still many compounds in e-cigarette flavorings whose effects on the lungs are still relatively unknown. In fact, Teran believes that e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes might have more differences than similarities, and comparing them to one another might not be the best way to assess e-cigarettes health risks. After all, being safer than smoking is a very low bar to clear.
Teran cited a study from his lab that found vaping was associated with suppression of genes related to the immune system. The researchers even found many suppressed genes in vapers that they didnt find in smokers, suggesting vaping may have some unique effects on the immune system.
The ultimate cessation aid?
To say quitting smoking is hard is an understatement. Nicotine isnt just highly addictive; it can literally change the development of the brain to make people even more dependent on it if they start smoking in their teenswhich is exactly when most smokers start. Smokers looking to quit have a few options: cold turkey, gradually cutting back, using a nicotine replacement therapy, or a drug like Chantix.
Nicotine replacement therapyusing something like the patch or gumhelps smokers get their nicotine fix and taper them off of nicotine while keeping them from smoking. Many people may choose to go these treatments alone by buying the therapies over the counter at the drugstore.
According to a study from the 90s, quit rates for people who do the patch or gum alone, without the help of their doctor, vary between around 15 percent after six weeks, to less than 10 percent at 24 weeks follow-up. But subsequent reviews of that study and others like it that attempted to gain real world evidence for replacement therapies found their methodologies to be flawed.
Another review of nicotine replacement therapies found that people may be more successful if they had behavioral support such as a hotline to call or group therapy sessions. But quit rates are still low. Replacement therapy only enhances someones chances of quitting by 50 to 70 percent, according to the review. So if someone goes cold turkey without any support and has an 8 percent chance of success, using replacement therapy is only going to make their chances marginally greaterand thats only to smokers who are very highly motivated to quit.
Its unclear why quit rates are so low with replacement therapy. But part of the issue may be that smoking is more than just nicotine: its the ritual and social aspects too. E-cigarettes provide many of those same comforts, so some researchers believe they can be highly effective quitting tools.
I think someone specifically comes and seeks treatment, then I would recommend Chantix or nicotine replacement treatment, possibly supplemented by e-cigarettes, Peter Hajek, Director of Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, told the Daily Dot in a phone interview. So many smokers only manage to stop smoking when they try a few of these e-cigarette models.
Hajek was involved in a 2014 review of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. He and his colleagues found that e-cigarettes containing nicotine were more helpful than e-cigarettes without, but they couldnt determine if they were any better than the patch. Nonetheless, Hajek and colleagues in the Royal College of Physicians now urge smokers to make the switch to e-cigarettes, citing that they are 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes.
“They got six people together, several of whom had financial conflicts of interest, got around a table and scratched their head and scratched their butt and got that 95 percent number.”
How they got to that number is unclear. When the Daily Dot asked Hajek about it directly, he cited the many known toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke that lead to heart disease, lung disease, and cancer.
These chemicals are either totally absent or present in only minuscule amounts in e-cigarette vapor, Hajek said Chemicals exclusive to vaping may yet be found to also pose some risks, but this is unlikely to be more than only a small fraction of the risks of smoking.
But 95 percent less harmful seems like a long shot to Glantz.
The 95 percent number was simply made up, he said. If you go back and find the paper that comes up with that number. It has exactly no actual evidence in it. They got six people together, several of whom had financial conflicts of interest, got around a table and scratched their head and scratched their butt and got that 95 percent number.
Glantz thinks, if anything, e-cigarettes are about a third to a half as dangerous. Much of Glantzs work has also been to disprove the idea that e-cigarettes are useful smoking cessation tools when used alone. Earlier this year, he and his colleague published an analysis of several studies in the Lancet that e-cigarette users were 28 percent less likely to quit smoking than those who didnt use e-cigarettes.
The most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking. If you were a cigarette smoker and you switched entirely from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, it would be less dangerous, Glantz said. The majority of the data suggests most people are dual users.
He added that he believes e-cigarettes have definitely helped some people quit. But he thinks that they would only work for a minority of smokers.
Taber also thinks that e-cigarettes might not be a good cessation tool, but that they are less harmful than traditional e-cigarettes.
If youre smoking cigarettes, going to e-cigarettes is probably better for your health, Taber said. And if youre not smoking anything at all, dont try e-cigarettes and think they wont have an effect on your lungs.
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/07/19/what-do-e-cigarettes-do-to-your-lungs/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/163189673962
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Text
What do e-cigarettes do to your lungs?
When e-cigarettes hit the market they seemed like a godsend to smokers (and maybe even curious non-smokers): all the enjoyment of smoking cigarettes and none, or at least far fewer, of the health risks. Youre only breathing in water vapor and pure nicotine, the ads said.
But have those claims held up since e-cigarettes were introduced to the U.S. and European markets 10 years ago? The science is a bit more complicated than it seems, with scientists doggedly fighting to heavily regulate e-cigarettes, and others touting them as the ultimate smoking cessation device. Who is right?
The Daily Dot dug into the science to try and answer this question. But, spoiler alert: The science behind e-cigarettes is young and inconclusive. They currently are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which essentially allows e-cigarette manufacturers to operate without much oversight on nicotine contents and other chemical components in their e-cigarette liquids. However, the FDA will begin regulating e-cigarettes in August 2016.
Cancers, lung disease, and heart disease all take several years to developpeople havent been using e-cigarettes long enough to develop these diseases. Also, most e-cigarette users (called vapers) are current or former smokers, so it will be hard to parse out whether smoking or vaping was the true culprit of whatever diseases do form. Researchers can study the effects of e-cigarette aerosol in cultured cells and lab animals, but those studies cant definitively tell us what real-world e-cigarette use will look like in the long term. Lastly, several researchers are attempting to answer the question of whether or not e-cigarettes can be used to quit smoking all together. But that question has a complicated, incomplete answer too.
Lets break it down, starting with the physical differences between traditional and e-cigarettes.
Combustion vs. vaporization
Much of what makes traditional cigarettes so dangerous isnt the nicotinenicotine is super addictive, can cause heart disease, but theres very little evidence that it causes cancer. Cigarettes are dangerous because of the smoke itself. Lighting up causes the tobacco leaves and cellulose paper theyre wrapped in to combust. And combustion of plant matter releases several other chemicals: aldehydes, carbon monoxide, free radicals, heavy metalsa combination that can cause not only cancer but lead to heart and lung diseases as well.
E-cigarettes, on the other hand, use a battery to vaporize a mixture of nicotine, glycerol or propylene glycol, and flavorings, depending on the product. Vaporization happens at a much lower temperature than combustion, so it seems reasonable that it wouldnt cause the release of all the same nasties as cigarettes.
“The cancer risk is probably lower than a conventional cigarette, but the effects of the ultrafine particles and the aldehydes are about the same.”
But youre not just breathing in nicotine and water vapor, according to Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.
In the process of heating up you get a lot of aldehydes and the ultrafine particles are themselves dangerous, Glantz told the Daily Dot over the phone. The cancer risk is probably lower than a conventional cigarette, but the effects of the ultrafine particles and the aldehydes are about the same.
The effects of the particulates may include inflammation in the lungs that can cause lung disease over time. One study found that cultured white blood cells exposed to e-cigarette vapor extract released inflammation-causing compounds, suggesting that breathing e-cigarette vapor may have similar effects within the body. Glantz also said that the particulates in both e-cigarette vapor, cigarette smoke, and air pollution can also cause the blood to get sticky, leading to clogged arteries and heart disease.
The preliminary evidence agrees with Glantzs views. According to two reviews, e-cigarette vapor is quite harmful in animal and cell culture studies. However, detractors from e-cigarettes tend to argue that e-cigarettes also release aldehydesbut theres reason to be skeptical, according to the second review. One study found that e-cigarette vapor contained formaldehydethe same probable-cancer-causing chemical used to preserve animals for dissection. However, some argued that the temperature used to create the e-cigarette vapor in that study was too high. Vaping at too-high temperatures causes a phenomenon called a dry puff which is very harsh and unpleasant, as anyone whos ever tried an e-cigarette can tell you.
“Lemme dry puff that real quick” #RealLife
Mansa Musa #LYBB (@EddzSmokesLoud) July 4, 2015
According to a recent study in the journal Addiction, e-cigarettes only release formaldehyde in the dry puff condition.
E-cigarettes are a moving target
In the 10 years theyve been on the market, e-cigarette devices have changed rapidly. The first generation e-cigarettes looked a lot like traditional ones (theyre also known as cigalikes), but werent as good at getting nicotine into the blood as traditional cigarettes.
“Time will tell whether or not that chronic inflammation will lead to disease.”
But the newer generation e-cigarettes deliver nicotine to the bloodstream at levels comparable to regular cigarettes, meaning they can give vapers the same nicotine fix as smokers. This is good news for their potential to help smokers quit smoking. But theres a catch.
Most of the data Ive seen on second and third-generation devices is that they do cause inflammation in the lungs. They do cause a measurable biological response, Robert Teran, lead author of the second review and director of SoM Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill said in a phone interview with the Daily Dot. Time will tell whether or not that chronic inflammation will lead to disease.
Additionally, e-cigarettes introduce a few variables that traditional cigarettes do not. Flavorings are common in e-cigarette liquids. While the chemicals used to create those flavors are all on the FDAs approved list of food additives, pretty much no one has studied the effect of inhaling the vapors of these chemicals, Teran said.
There is one notable exception: diacetyl. Diacetyl is the primary chemical that gives movie theater popcorn its buttery flavor. Its also a byproduct in many other foods: it gives some Chardonnays their signature buttery undertones. If you pick it up in beer, that can also be a sign that your local bar needs to clean the lines in their beer taps.
Its safe to eat, but if you breathe it in it causes bronchiolitis obliterans, otherwise known as popcorn lung, Teran said. And the only reason researchers know about the harmful effects of breathing in diacetyl is because workers in popcorn factories came down with this illness.
But diacetyl isnt just in buttery flavors. Its also in a lot of berry flavorings as well, according to one study found diacetyl in 39 of 51 e-cigarette flavors. However, diacetyl is also present in cigarette smokeat levels higher than those experienced by workers in popcorn factories, according to a 2014 study. So maybe its a wash with diacetyl.
Nonetheless, there are still many compounds in e-cigarette flavorings whose effects on the lungs are still relatively unknown. In fact, Teran believes that e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes might have more differences than similarities, and comparing them to one another might not be the best way to assess e-cigarettes health risks. After all, being safer than smoking is a very low bar to clear.
Teran cited a study from his lab that found vaping was associated with suppression of genes related to the immune system. The researchers even found many suppressed genes in vapers that they didnt find in smokers, suggesting vaping may have some unique effects on the immune system.
The ultimate cessation aid?
To say quitting smoking is hard is an understatement. Nicotine isnt just highly addictive; it can literally change the development of the brain to make people even more dependent on it if they start smoking in their teenswhich is exactly when most smokers start. Smokers looking to quit have a few options: cold turkey, gradually cutting back, using a nicotine replacement therapy, or a drug like Chantix.
Nicotine replacement therapyusing something like the patch or gumhelps smokers get their nicotine fix and taper them off of nicotine while keeping them from smoking. Many people may choose to go these treatments alone by buying the therapies over the counter at the drugstore.
According to a study from the 90s, quit rates for people who do the patch or gum alone, without the help of their doctor, vary between around 15 percent after six weeks, to less than 10 percent at 24 weeks follow-up. But subsequent reviews of that study and others like it that attempted to gain real world evidence for replacement therapies found their methodologies to be flawed.
Another review of nicotine replacement therapies found that people may be more successful if they had behavioral support such as a hotline to call or group therapy sessions. But quit rates are still low. Replacement therapy only enhances someones chances of quitting by 50 to 70 percent, according to the review. So if someone goes cold turkey without any support and has an 8 percent chance of success, using replacement therapy is only going to make their chances marginally greaterand thats only to smokers who are very highly motivated to quit.
Its unclear why quit rates are so low with replacement therapy. But part of the issue may be that smoking is more than just nicotine: its the ritual and social aspects too. E-cigarettes provide many of those same comforts, so some researchers believe they can be highly effective quitting tools.
I think someone specifically comes and seeks treatment, then I would recommend Chantix or nicotine replacement treatment, possibly supplemented by e-cigarettes, Peter Hajek, Director of Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, told the Daily Dot in a phone interview. So many smokers only manage to stop smoking when they try a few of these e-cigarette models.
Hajek was involved in a 2014 review of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. He and his colleagues found that e-cigarettes containing nicotine were more helpful than e-cigarettes without, but they couldnt determine if they were any better than the patch. Nonetheless, Hajek and colleagues in the Royal College of Physicians now urge smokers to make the switch to e-cigarettes, citing that they are 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes.
“They got six people together, several of whom had financial conflicts of interest, got around a table and scratched their head and scratched their butt and got that 95 percent number.”
How they got to that number is unclear. When the Daily Dot asked Hajek about it directly, he cited the many known toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke that lead to heart disease, lung disease, and cancer.
These chemicals are either totally absent or present in only minuscule amounts in e-cigarette vapor, Hajek said Chemicals exclusive to vaping may yet be found to also pose some risks, but this is unlikely to be more than only a small fraction of the risks of smoking.
But 95 percent less harmful seems like a long shot to Glantz.
The 95 percent number was simply made up, he said. If you go back and find the paper that comes up with that number. It has exactly no actual evidence in it. They got six people together, several of whom had financial conflicts of interest, got around a table and scratched their head and scratched their butt and got that 95 percent number.
Glantz thinks, if anything, e-cigarettes are about a third to a half as dangerous. Much of Glantzs work has also been to disprove the idea that e-cigarettes are useful smoking cessation tools when used alone. Earlier this year, he and his colleague published an analysis of several studies in the Lancet that e-cigarette users were 28 percent less likely to quit smoking than those who didnt use e-cigarettes.
The most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking. If you were a cigarette smoker and you switched entirely from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, it would be less dangerous, Glantz said. The majority of the data suggests most people are dual users.
He added that he believes e-cigarettes have definitely helped some people quit. But he thinks that they would only work for a minority of smokers.
Taber also thinks that e-cigarettes might not be a good cessation tool, but that they are less harmful than traditional e-cigarettes.
If youre smoking cigarettes, going to e-cigarettes is probably better for your health, Taber said. And if youre not smoking anything at all, dont try e-cigarettes and think they wont have an effect on your lungs.
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/07/19/what-do-e-cigarettes-do-to-your-lungs/
0 notes
Text
What do e-cigarettes do to your lungs?
When e-cigarettes hit the market they seemed like a godsend to smokers (and maybe even curious non-smokers): all the enjoyment of smoking cigarettes and none, or at least far fewer, of the health risks. Youre only breathing in water vapor and pure nicotine, the ads said.
But have those claims held up since e-cigarettes were introduced to the U.S. and European markets 10 years ago? The science is a bit more complicated than it seems, with scientists doggedly fighting to heavily regulate e-cigarettes, and others touting them as the ultimate smoking cessation device. Who is right?
The Daily Dot dug into the science to try and answer this question. But, spoiler alert: The science behind e-cigarettes is young and inconclusive. They currently are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which essentially allows e-cigarette manufacturers to operate without much oversight on nicotine contents and other chemical components in their e-cigarette liquids. However, the FDA will begin regulating e-cigarettes in August 2016.
Cancers, lung disease, and heart disease all take several years to developpeople havent been using e-cigarettes long enough to develop these diseases. Also, most e-cigarette users (called vapers) are current or former smokers, so it will be hard to parse out whether smoking or vaping was the true culprit of whatever diseases do form. Researchers can study the effects of e-cigarette aerosol in cultured cells and lab animals, but those studies cant definitively tell us what real-world e-cigarette use will look like in the long term. Lastly, several researchers are attempting to answer the question of whether or not e-cigarettes can be used to quit smoking all together. But that question has a complicated, incomplete answer too.
Lets break it down, starting with the physical differences between traditional and e-cigarettes.
Combustion vs. vaporization
Much of what makes traditional cigarettes so dangerous isnt the nicotinenicotine is super addictive, can cause heart disease, but theres very little evidence that it causes cancer. Cigarettes are dangerous because of the smoke itself. Lighting up causes the tobacco leaves and cellulose paper theyre wrapped in to combust. And combustion of plant matter releases several other chemicals: aldehydes, carbon monoxide, free radicals, heavy metalsa combination that can cause not only cancer but lead to heart and lung diseases as well.
E-cigarettes, on the other hand, use a battery to vaporize a mixture of nicotine, glycerol or propylene glycol, and flavorings, depending on the product. Vaporization happens at a much lower temperature than combustion, so it seems reasonable that it wouldnt cause the release of all the same nasties as cigarettes.
“The cancer risk is probably lower than a conventional cigarette, but the effects of the ultrafine particles and the aldehydes are about the same.”
But youre not just breathing in nicotine and water vapor, according to Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.
In the process of heating up you get a lot of aldehydes and the ultrafine particles are themselves dangerous, Glantz told the Daily Dot over the phone. The cancer risk is probably lower than a conventional cigarette, but the effects of the ultrafine particles and the aldehydes are about the same.
The effects of the particulates may include inflammation in the lungs that can cause lung disease over time. One study found that cultured white blood cells exposed to e-cigarette vapor extract released inflammation-causing compounds, suggesting that breathing e-cigarette vapor may have similar effects within the body. Glantz also said that the particulates in both e-cigarette vapor, cigarette smoke, and air pollution can also cause the blood to get sticky, leading to clogged arteries and heart disease.
The preliminary evidence agrees with Glantzs views. According to two reviews, e-cigarette vapor is quite harmful in animal and cell culture studies. However, detractors from e-cigarettes tend to argue that e-cigarettes also release aldehydesbut theres reason to be skeptical, according to the second review. One study found that e-cigarette vapor contained formaldehydethe same probable-cancer-causing chemical used to preserve animals for dissection. However, some argued that the temperature used to create the e-cigarette vapor in that study was too high. Vaping at too-high temperatures causes a phenomenon called a dry puff which is very harsh and unpleasant, as anyone whos ever tried an e-cigarette can tell you.
“Lemme dry puff that real quick” #RealLife
Mansa Musa #LYBB (@EddzSmokesLoud) July 4, 2015
According to a recent study in the journal Addiction, e-cigarettes only release formaldehyde in the dry puff condition.
E-cigarettes are a moving target
In the 10 years theyve been on the market, e-cigarette devices have changed rapidly. The first generation e-cigarettes looked a lot like traditional ones (theyre also known as cigalikes), but werent as good at getting nicotine into the blood as traditional cigarettes.
“Time will tell whether or not that chronic inflammation will lead to disease.”
But the newer generation e-cigarettes deliver nicotine to the bloodstream at levels comparable to regular cigarettes, meaning they can give vapers the same nicotine fix as smokers. This is good news for their potential to help smokers quit smoking. But theres a catch.
Most of the data Ive seen on second and third-generation devices is that they do cause inflammation in the lungs. They do cause a measurable biological response, Robert Teran, lead author of the second review and director of SoM Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill said in a phone interview with the Daily Dot. Time will tell whether or not that chronic inflammation will lead to disease.
Additionally, e-cigarettes introduce a few variables that traditional cigarettes do not. Flavorings are common in e-cigarette liquids. While the chemicals used to create those flavors are all on the FDAs approved list of food additives, pretty much no one has studied the effect of inhaling the vapors of these chemicals, Teran said.
There is one notable exception: diacetyl. Diacetyl is the primary chemical that gives movie theater popcorn its buttery flavor. Its also a byproduct in many other foods: it gives some Chardonnays their signature buttery undertones. If you pick it up in beer, that can also be a sign that your local bar needs to clean the lines in their beer taps.
Its safe to eat, but if you breathe it in it causes bronchiolitis obliterans, otherwise known as popcorn lung, Teran said. And the only reason researchers know about the harmful effects of breathing in diacetyl is because workers in popcorn factories came down with this illness.
But diacetyl isnt just in buttery flavors. Its also in a lot of berry flavorings as well, according to one study found diacetyl in 39 of 51 e-cigarette flavors. However, diacetyl is also present in cigarette smokeat levels higher than those experienced by workers in popcorn factories, according to a 2014 study. So maybe its a wash with diacetyl.
Nonetheless, there are still many compounds in e-cigarette flavorings whose effects on the lungs are still relatively unknown. In fact, Teran believes that e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes might have more differences than similarities, and comparing them to one another might not be the best way to assess e-cigarettes health risks. After all, being safer than smoking is a very low bar to clear.
Teran cited a study from his lab that found vaping was associated with suppression of genes related to the immune system. The researchers even found many suppressed genes in vapers that they didnt find in smokers, suggesting vaping may have some unique effects on the immune system.
The ultimate cessation aid?
To say quitting smoking is hard is an understatement. Nicotine isnt just highly addictive; it can literally change the development of the brain to make people even more dependent on it if they start smoking in their teenswhich is exactly when most smokers start. Smokers looking to quit have a few options: cold turkey, gradually cutting back, using a nicotine replacement therapy, or a drug like Chantix.
Nicotine replacement therapyusing something like the patch or gumhelps smokers get their nicotine fix and taper them off of nicotine while keeping them from smoking. Many people may choose to go these treatments alone by buying the therapies over the counter at the drugstore.
According to a study from the 90s, quit rates for people who do the patch or gum alone, without the help of their doctor, vary between around 15 percent after six weeks, to less than 10 percent at 24 weeks follow-up. But subsequent reviews of that study and others like it that attempted to gain real world evidence for replacement therapies found their methodologies to be flawed.
Another review of nicotine replacement therapies found that people may be more successful if they had behavioral support such as a hotline to call or group therapy sessions. But quit rates are still low. Replacement therapy only enhances someones chances of quitting by 50 to 70 percent, according to the review. So if someone goes cold turkey without any support and has an 8 percent chance of success, using replacement therapy is only going to make their chances marginally greaterand thats only to smokers who are very highly motivated to quit.
Its unclear why quit rates are so low with replacement therapy. But part of the issue may be that smoking is more than just nicotine: its the ritual and social aspects too. E-cigarettes provide many of those same comforts, so some researchers believe they can be highly effective quitting tools.
I think someone specifically comes and seeks treatment, then I would recommend Chantix or nicotine replacement treatment, possibly supplemented by e-cigarettes, Peter Hajek, Director of Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, told the Daily Dot in a phone interview. So many smokers only manage to stop smoking when they try a few of these e-cigarette models.
Hajek was involved in a 2014 review of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. He and his colleagues found that e-cigarettes containing nicotine were more helpful than e-cigarettes without, but they couldnt determine if they were any better than the patch. Nonetheless, Hajek and colleagues in the Royal College of Physicians now urge smokers to make the switch to e-cigarettes, citing that they are 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes.
“They got six people together, several of whom had financial conflicts of interest, got around a table and scratched their head and scratched their butt and got that 95 percent number.”
How they got to that number is unclear. When the Daily Dot asked Hajek about it directly, he cited the many known toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke that lead to heart disease, lung disease, and cancer.
These chemicals are either totally absent or present in only minuscule amounts in e-cigarette vapor, Hajek said Chemicals exclusive to vaping may yet be found to also pose some risks, but this is unlikely to be more than only a small fraction of the risks of smoking.
But 95 percent less harmful seems like a long shot to Glantz.
The 95 percent number was simply made up, he said. If you go back and find the paper that comes up with that number. It has exactly no actual evidence in it. They got six people together, several of whom had financial conflicts of interest, got around a table and scratched their head and scratched their butt and got that 95 percent number.
Glantz thinks, if anything, e-cigarettes are about a third to a half as dangerous. Much of Glantzs work has also been to disprove the idea that e-cigarettes are useful smoking cessation tools when used alone. Earlier this year, he and his colleague published an analysis of several studies in the Lancet that e-cigarette users were 28 percent less likely to quit smoking than those who didnt use e-cigarettes.
The most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking. If you were a cigarette smoker and you switched entirely from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, it would be less dangerous, Glantz said. The majority of the data suggests most people are dual users.
He added that he believes e-cigarettes have definitely helped some people quit. But he thinks that they would only work for a minority of smokers.
Taber also thinks that e-cigarettes might not be a good cessation tool, but that they are less harmful than traditional e-cigarettes.
If youre smoking cigarettes, going to e-cigarettes is probably better for your health, Taber said. And if youre not smoking anything at all, dont try e-cigarettes and think they wont have an effect on your lungs.
Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/07/19/what-do-e-cigarettes-do-to-your-lungs/
from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/what-do-e-cigarettes-do-to-your-lungs/
0 notes