If the world’s one billion cigarette smokers were to switch to electronic cigarettes, the death toll would be reduced from more than five million each year to perhaps tens of thousands.
E-cigarettes are designed to deliver nicotine to the user without the toxic gases and particles contained in cigarette smoke.
Smokers and e-cigarette users can expect to get up to 20mg of nicotine per day and, at that dose, nicotine appears to have minimal effects on physical health for the large majority of people.
Millions of people in Sweden use a form of tobacco called snus that they put in the mouth. It gives similar amounts of nicotine with little evidence of effects on life expectancy.
There is concern that perhaps other components of e-cigarette