E-cigarettes May Increase the Risk of Chronic Lung Disease

• A new study shows that e-cigarettes increase the chance of developing lung disease.
• The chance is even greater if the e-cig user also smokes regular cigarettes.

About the Research

The new research about e-cigarettes comes from UC San Francisco. Furthermore, the researchers working on this project use data from the publicly accessible Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH). Their findings are available through the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

E-cigarettes and Lung Disease

Most of the research concerning smoking and lung disease looks at tobacco smokers. However, researchers from UC want to explore the effects of e-cigarettes on lung health. Even though vaporizing pens are thought of as substitutes for regular cigarettes, they can have a harmful effect.

Researchers use the database from PATH and look at e-cigarette users’ habits. Their sample consists of about 32,000 adults from the US. Also, the data they use comes from a longitudinal study that looks at the smoker’s habits between 2013 to 2016. Aside from looking at how often they smoke the researchers also consider the smokers lung health.

After studying all the data, they conclude, that e-cigarettes increase your chance of gaining lung disease. To be more precise, smoking conventional tobacco increases the chance by 2.6 times. On the other hand, smoking e-cigs makes the chance 1.3 times greater. However, the biggest increase is present among smokers that use both tobacco and electric cigarettes, that is, vape pens.

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Limitation

• This study comes from the US and it does not consider other lifestyle factors that could contribute to the development of lung disease.

Source

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/uoc–esr121119.php

http://www.ucsf.edu/