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Cigarettes hurt us in a huge number of ways, from strokes, heart disease, lung disease and cancer. But today we are going to highlight one of the lesser known effects of smoking, Diabetes.
To be more specific Type 2 diabetes, due to the fact that smokers have a 40% higher chance (1) to develop this than non-smokers.
And what makes it worse is that not only does smoking significantly raise the chance of developing this, but cigarettes also make the chance of developing serious health issues with it much higher.
CAN YOU DEVELOP DIABETES BY SMOKING?
The cause of type 2 diabetes isn’t known at the moment, but such factors as weight, physical activity and smoking all seem to play a big part.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, and caused by the body not producing enough insulin, or the body not being able to use the insulin well.
The pancreas is the organ which produces the insulin, and is the hormone which takes the glucose from the food you digest to the cells that need the energy. Without insulin the glucose floats in the blood and never makes it to the cells. This can effect the cells, but more importantly the glucose in the blood begins to stick together and causes damage to your blood vessels.
The good news is that diabetes can be controlled with a good diet, exercise and of course medication to manage insulin levels.
If you are a smoker though it probably won't be that easy. The 4000+ chemicals and 50+ carcinogens in cigarettes cause havoc on your body, and even if you do everything listed above there is a good chance that there will be complications. An example of these complications are:
- higher risk for kidney disease (2)
- circulatory complications leading to amputation (3)
There is also evidence that the more cigarettes you smoke, the higher the chance you are of developing these symptoms.
And even worse is that even if diabetes doesn't expand into any of these, it can still seriously harm or even kill by contributing to other diseases. Diabetes can be a leading cause in strokes and with heart disease, both of which are also caused by smoking.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAVE WITH SMOKO?
Smoking cigarettes is an expensive habit! By switching from cigarettes to SMOKO you could save around £10 per day for someone smoking 20 cigarettes per day.
It is a catch 22 then as a smoker with diabetes, even if you are able to manage this disease it will still make it much more likely that you could suffer other health issues as the toxins in cigarettes will continue to damage your body.
To put this in perspective, if you are a smoker you are 4 times more likely to develop a heart disease or suffer a stroke than those who don’t. In fact the chance as a smoker to die from one of these diseases is 84%! (4)
IS THERE A LINK BETWEEN E-CIGARETTES AND DIABETES?
The best and most obvious solution to this problem is to stop smoking. And if you have developed diabetes then we would highly recommend that you cut out all nicotine from your life (yes that includes us as well).
The problem is that to get to the point where a smoker has diabetes, and still smokes, it would be safe to say that the addiction has well and truly got its hooks in. And that is where E-cigarettes come in.
There was a study on nicotine in 2011 and they did indeed find that the nicotine in does affect you, though not by a huge amount. It found that the increase in HbA1c was not big (less than 1 mmol/mol), which is only about 2% of the 42mmol/mol a diabetic should aim for.
Nicotine is not good for those who have developed diabetes, as it can raise the blood pressure which puts more strain on the heart and also increases your blood sugar level, making the insulin work harder. But the same can be said for nicotine patches and gum, which are both approved for diabetics to use to quit smoking. Currently, there is no link between e-cigarettes and insulin resistance (5).
Nicotine then is a complication, but there is no doubt that someone with diabetes needs to stop smoking, and it has been shown the e-cigarettes are the best way to do this. Smokers who try to quit with e-cigarettes are almost twice as likely to finally get off cigarettes than those who try gum or patches. And even though there is nicotine in e-cigarettes there aren’t the other 4000+ chemicals that cigarettes provide.
That is why Public Health England and the NHS both say that e-cigarettes are at least '95% less harmful than cigarettes' (6). Without the 4000+ toxins that damage your heart and blood vessels diabetics are put into a much stronger position to deal with their symptoms.
For those then that have tried other methods to quit smoking, but keep coming back to cigarettes, e-cigarettes can provide a much less harmful alternative. They also give the same taste, throat hit and feel of a cigarette which for many long time smokers can be the key difference between quitting for good and falling off the wagon.
Here at SMOKO we even offer a 0% option for those who want the feel and taste of a cigarette, but not the nicotine. Though we wouldn’t suggest this for smokers just starting (as nicotine cravings are no joke) it can make a great end goal. With our range of strengths users can work their way down the strengths until they reach 0%.
If you have been looking for a way to get rid of the cigarettes, then SMOKO E-Cigarettes might be able to help, have a look at our range of starter kits and see if you can finally be free of smoking!
*2024 Update - Now you can get a *FREE Starter kit when you buy a box of SMOKO E-Cigarette refills! *(Cigalike, one per customer)
REFERENCES
(1) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Smoking and Diabetes
(2) Does smoking affect the liver?
(3) British Heart Foundation: Smoking
(5) Electronic cigarettes and insulin resistance in animals and humans
(6) Using E-Cigarettes to stop smoking
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Written by Mike Cameron
Mike Cameron is a former smoker of 15 years (2 packs a day) until he successfully quit using a cigalike. Mike is the Co-Founder and CEO of SMOKO E-Cigarettes and over the last 10 years, SMOKO has prevented 600M+ cigarettes from being smoked, helped their customers save £320M+ of their hard-earned money from going up in smoke and helped 10,000’s of adult smokers in 25+ countries to live smoke-free.
