The protagonist of the movie "You are a teenager" Yi Qianqianxi is not only an idol of the new generation, but also an important role as a WHO tobacco control ambassador. But there are smoking scenes in the movie. Yi Yang Qianxi responded by saying: "I smoked tea cigarettes, and I choked a lot."
Because of replacing cigarettes with tea cigarettes, Yi Yang Qianxi has been widely praised. Some tea cigarette manufacturers also took the opportunity to publicize tea cigarettes as "healthy alternatives to traditional cigarettes."
However, is the “health” of tea cigarettes really worthy of the name?
What is tea smoke?
Tea tobacco refers to cigarettes made by replacing tobacco leaves with tea, also called smoked tea. It is indeed somewhat different from cigarettes.
First, the contents are different. Cigarettes contain tobacco leaves, and tea cigarettes contain tea leaves. Tobacco leaves are rich in nicotine, while tea leaves have only a trace amount of nicotine.
The second is the difference in filters. Most cigarettes use acetate fiber as a filter, while the filter for tea cigarettes is cotton yarn [1]. Acetate fiber can filter tar and particles through direct interception, inertial compaction and diffusion precipitation. Unlike acetate filaments, cotton yarns have only one way of functioning mechanically. In the era of early industrialization in my country, cotton yarn was often used for dust protection, but it has now been eliminated.
Finally, cigarettes and tea cigarettes are subject to different regulations. Traditional cigarettes have a corresponding regulatory department, which is managed by the tobacco management department. Since tea cigarettes neither contain tobacco leaves nor use cellulose acetate filters for cigarettes, they do not need to be subject to investigation and supervision by the tobacco administration.
What are the disadvantages of smoking tea cigarettes?
Since ancient times, tea has been considered beneficial to human health. Lu Yu's "The Classic of Tea" said, "The origin of tea is from the Shennong family", indicating that since the beginning of the early Chinese civilization, the Chinese had a habit of drinking tea. Tea culture is also a highlight of Chinese culture, and generations of Chinese people have benefited from tea. For example, in northwestern China, there is a shortage of vegetables during the long winter, and the tea from the ancient tea-horse road is an extremely important source of vitamins for them.
Modern scientific research has also found that tea is rich in tea polyphenols, and tea polyphenols have the effects of antioxidant and inhibiting the growth of tumor cells; drinking tea is beneficial to human health and can reduce the risk of death [2-4]. However, it should be pointed out that although tea has a certain health effect on people, there is no evidence that tea can be used as a treatment for certain diseases.
Obviously, brewing tea and drinking it as cigarettes are two completely different ways.
If you smoke tea smoke, most of the organic matter contained in the tea will be burned and chemically reacted to become smoke under the high temperature and aerobic combustion conditions of several hundred degrees. Even if there are still very few substances that are stable after burning, whether they can be absorbed after entering the lungs is still a problem, because the lungs are after all a place to exchange oxygen, not an organ for digestion and absorption.
Therefore, smoking tea cigarettes will not have the benefits of drinking tea. But its disadvantages are certain.
First, the impact of the particulate matter produced by burning tea on the human body. In daily life, the smoke from tobacco burning is one of the main sources of indoor air PM2.5. For example, a smoker smoking 3 cigarettes in a row can cause the PM2.5 level in the air 1.5 meters away from the smoker to exceed 1700 micrograms/m3. According to the "Ambient Air Quality Standards" (GB3095-2012) issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, the 24-hour average concentration limit of PM2.5 is 75 micrograms/m3. Although tea smoke does not contain a lot of nicotine like cigarettes, tea leaves can also produce a lot of particulate matter after burning. Among them, coarse particulate matter, incompletely burned carbon dust, and dust can be deposited in the large airways and upper respiratory tract, which may cause local rhinitis, pharyngitis or tracheobronchitis; fine particulate matter can directly enter the lower respiratory tract and induce chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Acute exacerbation, pneumonia, etc. [5].
Second, in addition to smoke particles, tea leaves also produce harmful substances after burning. After traditional tobacco is burned, nearly 7000 kinds of substances are produced, dozens of which have been proved to be harmful to the human body (including carbon monoxide, tar, aldehydes, etc.) [6]. Therefore, smoking is the chief culprit of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and it is also a risk factor for many diseases including hypertension, gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, endocrine system diseases, and infertility. Although tea leaves hardly produce nicotine after burning, its smoke also contains a lot of other substances. Although there is no research data on the components of tea smoke smoke, a small part of it is undoubtedly harmful to the human body, such as carbon monoxide.
Therefore, compared with cigarettes, tea cigarettes only contain almost no nicotine, so they are not easily addictive, but its combustion will also produce harmful substances to the human body.
Can tea cigarettes be used to help quit smoking?
In view of the great harm of smoking to human health, smoking cessation and tobacco control have become a topic that needs attention.
It is common knowledge that smoking is harmful to people. Indeed, many smokers want to quit smoking and have worked hard for it. But in real life, how many smokers can really quit smoking successfully? A study of smokers from five provinces including Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Jiangsu, and Qinghai showed that among the 3379 smokers randomly selected in 2007, 231 of them successfully quit smoking [7]. In other words, less than 10% of smokers successfully quit smoking within ten years.
Quitting smoking is hard work. The dependence of smokers on nicotine in tobacco is a physiological phenomenon. To successfully quit smoking, you must not only overcome psychological difficulties, but also face more difficult physical reactions.
So, can tea cigarettes be used to help quit smoking?
As mentioned above, smoking addiction is mainly caused by dependence on nicotine. Because tea cigarettes contain only a small amount of nicotine, there is no theoretical basis for using tea cigarettes instead of cigarettes to quit smoking.
In addition, from a practical perspective, the currently approved drugs for smoking cessation in my country include nicotine drugs, varenicline, and bupropion hydrochloride sustained-release tablets, and there is no tea smoke. The only materials that support tea cigarettes can be used to quit smoking are from tasting reports published by tea cigarette experiencers on the Internet, but such tasting reports that lack rigorous scientific research design are not credible.
Therefore, no matter from the theoretical level or the practical level, tea cigarettes are currently not supported to help smokers quit smoking. Therefore, using tea cigarettes as a substitute for smoking cessation is just a gimmick for businesses.
How to quit smoking scientifically?
So, how should smokers quit smoking scientifically?
It is difficult to quit smoking because we often only regard smoking as a personal bad habit and look forward to relying on the personal perseverance of smokers to correct it. But in fact, the World Health Organization has already listed tobacco dependence as a chronic disease in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). To treat a disease, a scientific method must be used.
The first step is to assess the symptoms of tobacco dependence. If you are a smoker, please pay attention to whether you have the following behaviors: you need to smoke immediately when you wake up in the morning; it is difficult to control the urge to smoke in a non-smoking place, such as having to get off the train when the high-speed rail stops to smoke, or sneak to the bathroom to smoke during a meeting; After stopping smoking or reducing the amount of smoking, withdrawal symptoms appear, including smoking craving, anxiety, restlessness, low mood, headache, increased saliva secretion, increased appetite, inattention, sleep disturbance, etc.; symptoms of tobacco tolerance appear, namely It is necessary to increase the amount of smoking to obtain the smoking experience that can be obtained by smoking a smaller amount of cigarettes in the past. The most intuitive manifestation is the increase in daily smoking; because smoking gradually ignores other activities or interests, it cannot be obtained from other activities and preferences Smoking is similar to the satisfaction; unable to quit smoking after suffering from smoking-related diseases. You can use the form below to further assess your tobacco dependence.
Figure 1 Tobacco dependence assessment scale
The second step is to understand the process of successfully quitting smoking. Successful smoking cessation generally involves a process from “no thought of quitting” to “complete quitting”. This is an incremental and phased “success” process (Figure 2), not just “quit” or “no quit”. "Two states. Therefore, smoking cessation often cannot be accomplished overnight. Most smokers will go through all or most of the twelve stages before they quit smoking completely. If you are a smoker and you are reading this article, it means that you are more or less interested in quitting smoking. Well, congratulations! You have taken the first step to successfully quit smoking. If you take a minute now and list two or three reasons to quit smoking, such as improving your personal health, saving money, and avoiding second-hand smoke from endangering your family's health, then you have taken the second step to successfully quit smoking! If you have tried to quit smoking, but later relapsed, it is not a failure. There is no need to be discouraged. Instead, it means that you are already on the sixth step of the success ladder, or even higher. Success is within reach. Up.
Figure 2 The 12 stages of successful smoking cessation
The third step is to seek outside help. If you have a plan to quit smoking, please be sure to inform your relatives and friends around you so that you can not only get enough spiritual support from them, but they can also better understand and accommodate your possible withdrawal symptoms. Most importantly, please remember that in order to overcome a disease, you have a reason and a right to seek medical help. Many general hospitals have set up special smoking cessation clinics to provide smokers with professional and personalized smoking cessation interventions. You can also call the national smoking cessation hotline 400-888-5531, 400-808-5531 and the health hotline 12320 to seek help for smoking cessation.
If there is a smoker by your side, and he is not willing to quit smoking, he should first conduct motivational intervention to stimulate his interest in quitting. A good motivational intervention should not only emphasize the harms of smoking and the benefits of quitting smoking, but also the individualization of admonitions, associating smoking with the issues that he is most concerned about, such as current symptoms, health concerns, economic costs, and second-hand smoke exposure Adverse effects on family members and others. At the same time, helping smokers estimate the problems and obstacles they may encounter in the process of quitting smoking, let them understand the existing smoking cessation intervention methods (such as counseling and drugs), plus appropriate lifestyle adjustments, can help them overcome these obstacles. The most important thing is to tell them that you will always be by their side and accompany them through every stage of quitting smoking.
Finally, it must be emphasized that the emergence of tea cigarettes is more of a commercial operation gimmick, it will not help you quit smoking. The tea ceremony cultivates sentiment and self-cultivation, but smoking tea is harmful to health. If you want to quit smoking by smoking tea cigarettes, it is far better to drink tea directly.
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