[Someone1234]

This was posted when it was published in May.

To use an analogy their argument is: Vaping is bad for you, don't do it. While ignoring that a ton of people quit smoking using vapes and that they're letting the perfect be the enemy of good.

Same thing with NSS. While NSS are a useful tool for sugar reduction, studies have shown that over the medium-long term, you'll want to reduce artificially sweat foods and even sweat food substitutes, to create a "new normal" or new baseline where an e.g. strawberry is sweat again. Which has been shown to be more sustainable.

The WHO aren't wrong, but everyone jumps on this with their own agenda. They are claiming that switching to NSS isn't a sustainable way to reduce BMI (and associated negative health outcomes) over the long term, hard to find data that disagrees with that. That's all they're claiming.

[busyant]

> to create a "new normal" or new baseline where an e.g. strawberry is sweat again.

Just an interesting story.

About 5 years ago, I tried to cut out all processed carbs from my diet.

After several months, I was away from home and I had to eat something---the only thing open was a Dunkin Donuts. I ordered an egg-white sandwich on a plain English muffin, and for kicks I took a bite out of the English muffin.

Holy shit. It tasted super sweet!!

I can't be sure, but I assume it had refined sugar added to it to improve its palatability. Made me think about everything that goes into fast foods...

[whiskers]

I've been in America only once while overnighting in a hotel near LAX en-route to New Zealand from the UK.

Everything I ate at that hotel tasted sweet from the pizza I ordered that night to the toast I had in the morning. What should have been delicious and savoury was instead sickening and unpleasant - it was so weird.

[Insanity]

I’m from Europe and had a similar experience on the first visit to the US. It’s like the sugar level is set to max for everything lol.

[carlmr]

The food industry is really trying hard to kill Americans. Sugar everywhere, and all kinds of additives and processing everywhere else.

[beezlebroxxxxxx]

I had the same experience when I went from peanut butter that is just ground peanuts to some peanut butter from some of the big brands. The big brand PB tastes like cake icing.

[CyberDildonics]

refined sugar

I don't think there is any difference to your body between sugar and 'refined sugar'. It is all going to have a lot of fructose in it.

Things like agave syrup or whatever else are just tricks to make people think they are getting healthy sugar.

[jrmg]

I’m sure it did have added sugar. Basically all American supermarket bread products (including most bread!) do, and are are super sweet to Europeans.

It extends shelf life though. European supermarket bread will mould in usually less than a week, but it’s really unusual for an American bread to go mouldy.

[uranium]

American bread certainly does go moldy, but the sugar absorbs moisture and keeps the bread softer longer.

That being said, I'd much rather they used less. At this point it's pretty hard to buy a hamburger bun around here [SF] that doesn't taste like a brioche to me.

[stevenwoo]

I started making baking at home when pandemic lockdowns started and with only flour, yeast, salt, oil and sugar my bread grows mold within one to two days (2 cups of flour with 1 teaspoon of sugar) I speculate my home humidity might be high without air conditioning or heat but it seems a lot of something is necessary to prevent commercial bread products from molding for a long time.

[whiskers]

Home baked bread freezes really well so take advantage of that! I also bake a lot of bread at home and usually make a batch of 1kg of flour at a time, that results in two good sized loaves - one goes in the freezer until the other is finished.

I freeze it in an air tight bag, and I take it out of the freezer a day before we want to start using it and let it thaw at room temperature.

[carlmr]

+1 for freezing. Additionally if you want less planning around when to thaw, I slice my bread before freezing, and then put it in the toaster to reheat it, with a bit of added crisp.

[zorgmonkey]

Sourdough takes substantially longer to grow mold than most other types of bread plus it is delicious and doable to make at home.

[mbg721]

Do you store it in a plastic zip-bag? I saw the most rapid bad changes either at room temp for days, or in the fridge and long after it was killed.

[carlmr]

How do you store it? Do you have a bread box?

[stevenwoo]

I tried using bags and a bread box and neither worked for me so now I eat what I can when it's hot and after it's cooled down I freeze it in plastic food bags that are recycled from food stuffs I have bought. Reheating it in the oven at a lower temperature works great for me.

[connicpu]

Sourdough was the only sliced bread I could find at my supermarket that didn't contain any added sugar and also wasn't ridiculously overpriced. That's been the only bread I've used for over a year now, and regular American sandwich bread tastes so weird to me now when I have the chance to try any

[dagw]

(including most bread!) do, and are are super sweet to Europeans.

Europeans, except Swedes. Swedish bread is also generally super sweet for some reason.

[Truupe]

I think Twinkies last forever and they have tons of sugar.

[tentacleuno]

I'm currently on keto and am curious what sweet food will taste like if I ever try it. I hear that if you don't eat such foods for a long time, they tend to come across as really really sweet.

[sschueller]

I have the same experience but only takes 2 days of no sugar. After that a lot of food is way to sweet.

[mike10921]

I fully agree. The main argument is that if you use sweeteners you will eat more sugar, so it is worse than sugar. So basically don't eat the non-poison because it will cause you to eat poison, so instead eat the poison itself.

Also, there is no concrete evidence that sweeteners are bad for one's health, it's more the feeling of 'chemicals' are always bad. Sugar is clearly bad and causes obesity and diabetes. The choice seems pretty clear between the two.

[mtlmtlmtlmtl]

Sugar is not poison or "clearly bad".

Sucrose is bad when eaten on its own, specifically in the abscence of fibre and other macronutrients that bring the GI down.

[mike10921]

It is not bad if one has self-control and eats a small amount of it, but that is really the case for most bad substances like alcohol, weed, etc.

If one is out of control eating sugar it is clearly going to have bad consequences. The immediate consequences will be obesity and bad teeth. The long-term would be diabetes, and there are definitely others as well.

[anonymouskimmer]

This depends on the sweetener. There have been recent articles linking bad health effects to erythritol and sucralose that I am aware of.

[unethical_ban]

Damn, I thought erythritol was downside-free. Looks like it is associated with a nontrivial risk of heart attack and stroke

https://www.realsimple.com/study-links-stevia-and-monk-fruit...

[uranium]

Let's wait for the news cycle and science to settle: https://peterattiamd.com/more-hype-than-substance-erythritol...

[anonymouskimmer]

On the positive side, while researching my comment, apparently that old boogieman of artificial sweeteners, saccharine, may be fine for humans (as the cancer-causing in rats is because of a unique rat feature that humans don't share).

[orwin]

I heard it was because the species of rat they used tend to get cancers anyway when they got older, and shouldn't be used in any long-term study.

I love scientists, loved working with them, best clients i ever had (if you're a devops or automate dev/scientists tools, and have to regularly explain stuff to scientists and to other devs, we don't compare advantageously at all), but sometimes there is too much noise.

[anonymouskimmer]

This is what I read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin#Warning_label_additi...

> However, in 2000, the warning labels were removed because scientists learned that rodents, unlike humans, have a unique combination of high pH, high calcium phosphate, and high protein levels in their urine.[34][35] One or more of the proteins that are more prevalent in male rats combine with calcium phosphate and saccharin to produce microcrystals that damage the lining of the bladder. Over time, the rat's bladder responds to this damage by overproducing cells to repair the damage, which leads to tumor formation. Since this does not occur in humans, there is no elevated risk of bladder cancer.[36]

I work in the biosciences (in a role between lab tech and actual scientist). So many things are provisionally accepted simply because you don't have the time or resources to verify them. Which is not too different from any other job, it just seems weird in the context of the sciences.

[zouhair]

If you read the guideline[0] it is way more circumspect. There are a lot of "probably" all over it. There is a need for way more research for a definitive guideline as it is stated in this guideline.

[0]: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240073616

[user_7832]

Thanks for your comment. Having read the conclusion, it is more of the authors saying "NSS could be responsible for hypertension/T2 Diabetes etc but it's not really conclusive".

I'll likely still consume some NSS'es though that is more due to my preexisting condition.

[zouhair]

They are following the science where it's going. The guideline will change when new science arise. But still we have ways to go in popularization of science.

[doxeddaily]

I'm super dubious about their conclusions here. Fat people drink diet soda because they are trying to avoid sugar. Diet soda actually tastes damn good these days, there isn't really a reason to drink regular soda.

[LeifCarrotson]

They are trying to replicate the assault on your taste buds that is sugar soda. They've gotten pretty good at it.

The problem is that the levels of sweetness, acidity, salinity, carbonation etc. in diet soda have become normalized. People give these dessert drinks to children, and drink it like it's water.

You know how overpoweringly strong some chocolate mousse can be? The kind where you can't finish a tiny slice of cake because more than a tiny sliver on your fork is too rich? Or how some foreign cuisines can be so potently dosed with curry or pepper that you can't taste any other flavors in the dish? Imagine replacing white bread throughout your diet with that chocolate cake. Or the punch of salt and pepper on an egg with that level of curry.

Ask someone from 100 years ago to sweeten a glass of lemonade "to taste" and you'd get something so weak that a consumer of diet soda would mock it like the meme "hint of hint of lime" or "transported on a truck near strawberries" flavors of LaCroix.

Yes it's better that they drink diet than regular soda. No, it's not good to normalize that flavor. I think human appetites are just not set up to handle some stimuli that previous levels of foraging or farming, chemistry, and distribution systems could not create.

[bbatha]

> Ask someone from 100 years ago to sweeten a glass of lemonade "to taste" and you'd get something so weak that a consumer of diet soda would mock it like the meme "hint of hint of lime" or "transported on a truck near strawberries" flavors of LaCroix.

This is quiet a suspicious claim if you've studied food or beverage history. We have cocktail recipes dating back 150 years, and punch recipes dating back almost 500. They are almost universally sweeter than today. Similarly food recipes also used a good deal more sugar. Some of this was no doubt to cover off flavors, less sweet varieties, and for the preservative power of sugar. You're going to need some citations that the normalization is the problem behavior.

[twic]

Reminds me of how sweet champagne used to be [1]:

> The most common style today is Brut [(6 to 12 grams of sugar per litre)]. However, throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th century Champagne was generally much sweeter than it is today. Moreover, except in Britain, Champagne was drunk as dessert wines (after the meal), rather than as table wines (with the meal).[55] At this time, Champagne sweetness was instead referred to by destination country, roughly as:[56]

> - Goût anglais ("English taste", between 22 and 66 grams); note that today goût anglais refers to aged vintage Champagne

> - Goût américain ("American taste", between 110 and 165 grams)

> - Goût français ("French taste", between 165 and 200 grams)

> - Goût russe ("Russian taste", between 200 and 300 grams)

By way of comparison, my favourite Orange Muscat dessert wine has 110 g/l sugar [2], a bog-standard ruby port has 102 g/l [3], my favourite sweet-ish sherry has a svelte 50 g/l [4], and a decent PX has an excruciating 417 g/l [5]. So Americans and the French alike used to drink champagne that was considerably sweeter than today's fortified and dessert wines!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne#Sweetness

[2] https://www.nicks.com.au/products/2003-brown-brothers-specia...

[3] https://www.vinello.co.uk/fine-ruby-port-taylors-port

[4] https://www.vinello.co.uk/apostoles-palo-cortado-vors-gonzal...

[5] https://www.vinello.co.uk/pedro-ximenez-san-emilio-emilio-lu...

[carlmr]

I think this might have to do with sugar being more expensive.

Today sugary drinks are associated with poverty, lack of self-control, lack of education. Champagne is a status signaling drink, you don't want to signal that.

[aidenn0]

I think normalization is the problem but not because people didn't drink sweet things; my suspicion is that previously they were drunk rarely and in smaller quantities (due to cost, if nothing else).

We've gone from "Twelve full ounces, that's a lot" to a 12oz can being the smallest commonly available size, and a 20oz bottle being common in vending machines.

Over my lifetime, the "medium" size soda at a fast-food restaurant has roughly doubled.

[tmedina]

Well thankfully shrinkflation is helping curb this. They now sell those mini-cans for as much as the regular sized one.

[gambiting]

>>Diet soda actually tastes damn good these days, there isn't really a reason to drink regular soda.

Oh god I couldn't disagree more. I literally can't stand the taste of diet pepsi/coke, the sweeteners leave such an awful aftertaste on my tongue.

[clamprecht]

Does Coke Zero or Pepsi Black taste any better to you? I don't like diet coke or diet pepsi, but I do like the newer coke zero.

[gambiting]

Nope. Both Coke Zero and Pepsi Max(I guess that's what you mean by Black) are just awful, different to Diet but still bad - but I feel the same about literally any drink sweetened with aspartame/acesulfam/sucralose though. I can't imagine drinking a can of any of these - but I'll happily have a regular coke.

[SirMaster]

The only one that works for me is Dr. Pepper Zero. So good.

[pitched]

Aspartame has a negative effect on the myelin sheath of neurons: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6014252/

As far as I know, all of the sugar alternatives have some (usually neuro?) downside that makes them scarier to me than sugar!

[nyc640]

Some caveats for others who don't want to read the study.

1. This is a study done on rats and is only a single study, so caveat emptor.

2. They administer 250mg/kg/d Aspartame (human recommended max dose is 50mg/kg/d) based on the claim that "Species correction required a five to six times higher dose in rats than humans, as rats metabolize aspartame faster than humans"

3. Even if you assume effects correlate perfectly to humans, a dosage of 50mg/kg/d in the average American 90kg male corresponds to 22.5 12-oz cans of Diet Coke (200 mg Aspartame) per day for 30 days straight (length of the study).

4. There was a group of rats fed Aspartame at those levels for 1 month, then left to recover for 1 month. The sciatic nerve in these rats recovered significantly, and although it appears the recovery was incomplete, they also state that this difference is not statistically significant. There is also no discussion about whether recovery over a time period > 1 month would have resulted in complete recovery.

[judge2020]

Skimmed through the text, and I'm fairly convinced (haven't drank Diet Coke in months), but I'd like to see a fourth group administered high fructose corn syrup and/or other artificial sweeteners.

[kendalf89]

I haven't heard anything bad about stevia yet.

[hangonhn]

> Diet soda actually tastes damn good these days, there isn't really a reason to drink regular soda.

I've been wondering about that. I wasn't sure if my memory has faded or maybe drinking it often made me like the taste but these days I find Diet Coke/Coke Zero to be equally enjoyable as Coke. Have the taste of the non-sugar Coke been steadily modified?

[doxeddaily]

Coke Zero has been reformulated multiple times. I think "diet coke" is still the same crap and still tastes bad.

[aezart]

The last time I tried Coke Zero, it tasted like Diet RC. I didn't like it at all.

Diet Coke has huge differences in flavor between sources and packaging options. It's universally bad out of a can or bottle, and the stuff from soda fountains varies by restaurant.

[taeric]

You also will change your tastes as you get older. So, could be a change in the sodas, could be a change in you.

[paganel]

They could drink plain water, and avoid all that soda poison. Cristiano Ronaldo was more than correct on this.

[hendersoon]

Well, exactly right. I'm not choosing between putting a packet of splenda in my coffee or drinking it black. I'm choosing between a packet of splenda or two packets of sucrose. I'd find a study telling me which one of those is the better choice to be very helpful.

[hackerlight]

> I'm choosing between a packet of splenda or two packets of sucrose.

The claim is that that's not what you're choosing between, because if that were the real choice, then the people who chose splenda would lose more weight than the people who chose sucrose, but that's apparently not the finding. So maybe the real choice is between two packets of sucrose, or splenda+two packets of sucrose, because the splenda causes you to eat more sucrose (or other trash) without your conscious realization.

[hendersoon]

I'm pretty sure I remember how I take my coffee! I've never done that.

Now you could argue that maybe I'm more likely to order a muffin alongside my coffee when I take splenda? Could be. I don't think so, but maybe.

[redundantly]

Try cold brew coffee. I've found I can drink cold brew black and it's perfectly palatable, whereas that's never been the case with hot brewed coffee.

If you'd like an easy way to try check out SToK. Fairly inexpensive, can be found at large store chains like Walmart.

[carabiner]

Well, if you eat an actual ripe strawberry they're incredibly sweet. The ones at the grocery store with the bitter white center are not ripe. But I get your point.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

From the article:

"Replacing free sugars with NSS does not help with weight control in the long term. People need to consider other ways to reduce free sugars intake, such as consuming food with naturally occurring sugars, like fruit, or unsweetened food and beverages,” says Francesco Branca, WHO Director for Nutrition and Food Safety.

"NSS are not essential dietary factors and have no nutritional value. People should reduce the sweetness of the diet altogether, starting early in life, to improve their health."

If I read that correctly, the WHO is recommending that the overall amount of sweet foods consumed should be reduced and that replacing sugar with other sweeteners will not cut it.

[irthomasthomas]

I'm afraid you might be wrong about that. Why do they keep inventing new sweeteners, now, every few years? After all, they're all sweet, and zero calories. But they keep investing money inventing new ones, when the customers are happy with the old ones.

Perhaps because the public research eventually catches up to them.

E.g. "sucralose ingestion caused 1) a greater incremental increase in peak plasma glucose concentrations (4.2 ± 0.2 vs. 4.8 ± 0.3 mmol/L; P = 0.03), 2) a 20 ± 8% greater incremental increase in insulin area under the curve (AUC) (P < 0.03), 3) a 22 ± 7% greater peak insulin secretion rate (P < 0.02), 4) a 7 ± 4% decrease in insulin clearance (P = 0.04), and 5) a 23 ± 20% decrease in SI (P = 0.01)."

https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/36/9/2530/37872/Su...

NNTs, sweet on the tongue, sweet on the liver! Yep, they trigger the same deleterious hormonal response that sugar does. They produce a cascading chemical chain reaction in the body leading to the over-production of insulin, the hunger-hormone, which signals your fat cells to begin absorbing glucose (triglycerides) from the blood stream. Removing the sugar from the bloodstream would normally cause insulin production to drop, but in this case, it's not the sugar triggering the productions, it's the NNT chemicals that are still circulating in your body..

[wrp]

> Why do they keep inventing new sweeteners...

Because nothing so far tastes as good as real sugar. The common practice in employing artificial sweeteners is to combine two or more in an effort to avoid the bitter aftertaste that you get from relying on just one.

[irthomasthomas]

More likely it's because they cannot claim their product is helpful to dieters, after there is mounting evidence that it may actually be worse for them.

[DrThunder]

Eh I get what you're saying but I don't think most people who switch to vaping actually stop quit nicotine all together, they just continue vaping with often higher levels of nicotine. I guess they have the advantage of getting rid of second-hand smoke and the permeating smell of cigarettes.

I think a similar thing happens with "diet" "sugar-free" products. Almost all of the people who use these products neglect every other aspect of their health thinking they're really going to tackle obesity by swapping out processed sugar for sweeteners.

Anecdotally, I've never seen someone using copious amounts of these sweeteners look healthy. They continue on being obese and out of shape. I think if your goal is to be healthy then your mind set has got to change and using an option like artificial sweeteners is just a "have your cake and eat it too" position that won't result in making you healthier.

[mike10921]

Nicotine itself is not more harmful than coffee or similar products. It is the smoking that is the main health risk. Assuming that vaping is less harmful, that would make it a win if one was to choose between smoking and vaping. Of course, doing neither is the absolute best choice.

[klik99]

Slight clarification: Nicotine at normal doses is not more harmful than coffee - though at high volumes it is pretty bad. In the context of this conversation though what you said is totally true.

[toolz]

I think we have to be more nuanced with health than this. Vaping can be the absolute best choice if it helps you maintain a healthy weight and/or a healthy career which keeps your health insurance activated.

There are plenty of people who swear by chemicals like nicotine and caffeine that help them achieve indirect benefits and I can't imagine they're all wrong.

[opan]

Gwern has some good writing on Nicotine if anyone's curious. He basically used it in small doses as a nootropic.

https://gwern.net/nicotine

[DrThunder]

Excuse me? That's irrevocably false. Where did you pull that misinformation from? The big vape industry?

https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-nicotine-5075412

" There are many health risks and side effects associated with using nicotine. Some of the health risks include:

    Nicotine contributes to the development of emphysema—a type of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease— in smokers.
    It’s potentially carcinogenic. Chronic nicotine use is linked to lung, gastrointestinal, pancreatic, and breast cancer.
    Nicotine use is associated with peptic ulcer disease (PUD) and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). 
    Nicotine use increases the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.
    Nicotine use during pregnancy increases the likelihood of complications and adverse outcomes like miscarriages and stillbirth.9
    Children exposed to nicotine in the womb are more predisposed to health problems throughout their lifetimes. These health problems affect their endocrine, reproductive, neurologic, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems.9
    Nicotine use can cause cardiac arrhythmia—a cardiovascular condition characterized by an irregular heartbeat.10"

[klik99]

We're talking about nicotine, not smoking. There is no evidence that nicotine is carcinogenic.

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-canc...

> Nicotine is the chemical that makes cigarettes addictive. But it is not responsible for the harmful effects of smoking, and nicotine does not cause cancer. People have safely used nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to stop smoking for many years. Nicotine replacement therapy is prescribed by doctors or is available from pharmacies.

The risks for hypertension, etc is true for nicotine, because it's a stimulant, so same risks exist for coffee. There is very little conclusive evidence that nicotine (not talking about smoking or vaping) has any health effects that aren't also caused by coffee/stimulants.

The best thing you can say about vaping is that it's very understudied and long term effects are unknown, and likely has some long term effects that are bad for you.

Smokeless nicotine (swedish snus-variety) is considered very safe.

The problem is smoking and nicotine have been so intertwined for so long that when they say "Nicotine causes x" most of the time what they mean is "Smoking causes x" and maybe also "Vaping could potentially cause x"

[DrThunder]

False. I provided you the evidence. Here's more, keep lying if it makes you feel better.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/ "In several in vitro experiments, it has been found that nicotine in concentrations as low as 1 μM decreased the anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effects exerted by chemotherapeutics on several different malignant cell lines"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363846/ "There is decreased immune response and it also poses ill impacts on the reproductive health. It affects the cell proliferation, oxidative stress, apoptosis, DNA mutation by various mechanisms which leads to cancer."

Are you a big vaper or something and this is upsetting to you or something? I can't see any other reason for you to react with outright lies.

[klik99]

Your previous comment didn't include any evidence, but these are pretty interesting. The second one is more damning, but again the majority of studies were on smokers. I'll update my statement and say there is little evidence that nicotine by itself is carcinogenic. As the second article says "The IARC monograph has not included nicotine as a carcinogen." so it's still not conclusive. The strongest thing I see in the second article is that nicotine can help promote existing tumors, that's concerning.

But the way science works is by having lots of viewpoints and research - there are also plenty of papers on how nicotine is not carcinogenic.

"Smokers commonly misperceive that nicotine is a major carcinogen" - https://thorax.bmj.com/content/66/4/353#ref-2

"The literature to February 2019 suggests that there is no increased cardiovascular risk of nicotine exposure in consumers who have no underlying cardiovascular pathology. There is scientific consensus that nicotine is not a direct or complete carcinogen, however, it remains to be established whether it plays some role in human cancer propagation and metastasis. " - https://f1000research.com/articles/8-1586 (This is what I saw in the second article - looks like there is a chance that nicotine can promote existing cancer)

"The devastating link between tobacco products and human cancers results from a powerful alliance of two factors — nicotine and carcinogens. Without either one of these, tobacco would be just another commodity, instead of being the single greatest cause of death due to preventable cancer. Nicotine is addictive and toxic, but it is not carcinogenic. This addiction, however, causes people to use tobacco products continually, and these products contain many carcinogens." - https://www.nature.com/articles/nrc1190

I am not a vaper, I do use patches and gum. I believe that damning nicotine prevents the development of replacements for smoking which is incredibly dangerous. I don't vape because research on that is in really early stages, and there's a good chance there might be something bad in the long term, though there is no strong evidence that it is worst than other NRT, except that levels of NNAL are higher (see the first paper you posted).

Edit To clarify that you didn't provide evidence in your first post - you linked to https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-nicotine-5075412 which has citations, but the comments about nicotine being carcinogenic linked to studies that studied smoking, not NRT or non-smoke based nicotine.

[Veen]

These are all health risks associated with smoking, not with nicotine itself. If you click through to the pages those risks link to, you'll see they are talking about smoking, not nicotine. There are some risks from nicotine (high blood pressure and faster heart rate), but it does not cause emphysema or cancer.

[fatfingerd]

Do we really know what portion of this isn't just correlation between nicotine and the fact that it has to be administered which usually involves smoke, fiberglass irritation, etc?

I think the main problem with nicotine is its addictiveness and the fact that that will lead you to accept risks in administration via cigarettes, toxic fluid vapors, chew with fiberglass, etc.

[toolz]

Nicotine isn't bad. There are plenty of ways people use nicotine in just as benign a way as many people use caffeine.

You've missed the far-and-above most beneficial effect of switching to vaping, which is getting rid of inhaling the huge category of carcinogens that come with inhaling partially burned solid fuel.

Cigarettes don't give you cancer because of nicotine. They give you cancer because of partially burned solid fuel.

[doxeddaily]

How many fat people have you seen lose weight and keep it off forever? Not very damn many that's for sure.

[nashashmi]

how many fat people were at some time before thin? getting fat is the end result of getting old.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Most of the really old people that I see are quite thin - is that due to the long-term health effects of being overweight meaning that they don't survive as long, or is it that extreme old age (>80) also involves a reduction in appetite?

[dmix]

> they just continue vaping with often higher levels of nicotine

Source?

[ryeights]

I can’t speak to OP’s claim about former smokers. However as a younger person who knows many younger never-smoker vape users, I can attest that they all consume vastly more nicotine than would ever be practical with cigarettes.

Vape pods are highly concentrated and you can use them anywhere, any time. No more need to bother with sneaking out of the house or taking smoke breaks.

[DrThunder]

Here's a start - feel free to go off on your own and learn.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...

"What’s worse, says Blaha, many e-cigarette users get even more nicotine than they would from a combustible tobacco product: Users can buy extra-strength cartridges, which have a higher concentration of nicotine, or increase the e-cigarette’s voltage to get a greater hit of the substance."

[meindnoch]

Sweat food? Yuck!

[gattilorenz]

Honeydew! Well, that’s actually worse than sweat…

[nashashmi]

Sweaty strawberries are amazing.

[LeifCarrotson]

I have a few memories of picking blueberries with my mom as a kid - sweat dripped off my eyebrows, down the back of my neck and onto the strap that held the tray. She tried to get us out early, but there was a period around 10:00 just after the dew burned off when the humidity was still 100% and the sun was high enough to bake you. As a 7yo wishing I could stay home on my "hard-earned" summer vacation, most of the hardship was purely imagined. And maybe the flavor of those sweaty blueberries was imagined: I've not been able to replicate the taste for some time, even if I drag dragging my own boy to the U-Pick field. I wonder what they taste like to him.

[fredgrott]

Vaping is wrong for a very different reason, i.e. because the amount and quality of nicotine is unregulated which means the standard vape has an overdose of nicotine which can result in death in a single vape. 6 deaths by vaping in my state of Indiana alone last year, and all of them teenagers.

[flaviut]

That's not vaping nicotine.

These kids are vaping THC adulterated with vitamin E[1]. Vitamin E is added because it makes a cut product thicker, and thickness is thought of as an indicator of quality. My guess here is that marijuana still has a stigma/is illegal, so these kids are finding it easier to just blame nicotine vapes to try and get themselves out of trouble.

There's no reason to cut nicotine vape liquid since the base ingredients (vegetable glycerin + propylene glycol) are absurdly cheap.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/e-cigarettes/s...

[Veen]

I find that very hard to believe unless these people are making their own vape juice with hundreds of times the recommended amount of pure nicotine. For example, a standard Juul pod contains about 40 mg of nicotine, each puff gives you a max of 160 µg, which is significantly less than a 2000th of the commonly believed lethal dose (500 mg orally for a 80KG person).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33762429/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine_poisoning

Btw, there's in interesting story attached to mistaken view about what constitutes a lethal dose of nicotine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3880486/

[Semaphor]

That’s not a general vaping thing, that’s about certain nicotine containing liquids or pods or whatever kids use these days. There are people like me who have zero nicotine in their vapes.