At the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) held in Warsaw, it was noted that the number of adults who smoke worldwide has exceeded 1 billion. It was announced that 100 million people switched to reduced-risk tobacco and nicotine products in order to quit smoking. It was noted that 100 million people turned to electronic cigarettes and tobacco heated products instead of cigarettes due to public authorities’ ‘tobacco harm reduction’ (Tobacco Harm Reduction, “THR”) programs that support the transition to lower risk products.
BAT Scientific Research Director David O’Reilly made a statement on the subject and said, “As an industry, we need more robust scientific data and evidence-based policies. We are aware of the harm that tobacco can cause. Our priority is to reduce the harmful effects on human health with new generation products for consumers who do not start or quit smoking, but do not want to quit for various reasons,” he said.
RESEARCH RESULT
While electronic cigarettes have been commercially available for the last 20 years, THP products are sold in more than 50 countries to reduce the negative impact on human health in markets where they have been available for a much shorter time. The journal Internal and Emergency Medicine also recently published the results of BAT’s research on new category products. According to the results of the research, the results of alternative products to cigarettes in users are as follows:
- Significant reduction in lung cancer risk biomarker was observed.
- Significant decreases were observed in white blood cell counts, markers of cardiovascular disease risk (CVD), inflammatory and other smoking-related disease markers.
- Improvement in HDL cholesterol associated with lower CVD risk,
- Improvements in two key indicators of lung health,
- Improvements were seen in oxidative stress indicators, a process that plays a role in various smoking-related diseases such as CVD and hypertension.