E-cigarettes 'could save thousands of lives'

According to research from University College London, for every one million smokers who switch to e-cigarettes more than 6,000 lives could be saved.

17:21 05 September 2014

Based on official figures, there are now nine million smokers in the United Kingdom. A research team from the University College London said that using e-cigarettes instead of real tobacco would result in more than 60,000 lives being saved.

Prof Robert West said that this is because toxins found in vapour from e-cigarettes were very low.

"You have to be a bit crazy to carry on smoking conventional cigarettes when there are e-cigarettes available," he said.

"The vapour contains nothing like the concentrations of carcinogens and toxins as cigarette smoke.

"In fact, concentrations are almost all well below a twentieth of cigarettes."

Using these estimates, he said that it would mean 6,000 lives being saved for every one million smoker who exchanged real cigarettes for e-cigarettes.

Lead researcher Prof Peter Hajek said: "I think any responsible regulator proposing restricting regulation has to balance reducing risks with reducing potential benefits.

"In this case the risks are unlikely, some already proven not to exist, while the benefits are potentially enormous. It really could be a revolutionary intervention in public health if smokers switched from cigarettes to electronic cigarettes.

"So killing benefits, which are huge, for risks which are small is like asking people to stop using mobile phones and tablets, or restrict their use and further development, because of a one in 10 million chance that the battery might overheat in your device."