New research underscores the harms of e-cigarettes, showing that vaping increases the risk of asthma in teens who have never smoked cigarettes.
Although e-cigarettes have fewer toxins than regular cigarettes, they still contain a mixture of harmful chemicals and raise the risk of respiratory diseases, researchers say.
“Increasing knowledge about the harmful effects of e-cigarette use, implementing stricter regulations, and promoting alternative coping mechanisms for mental health are potential interventions to mitigate e-cigarette use,” lead author Taehyun Roh, of Texas A&M University, said in a school news release.
Asthma causes wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness and coughing. It can be controlled by taking medicine and avoiding the triggers that can cause an attack, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nicotine is a bronchoconstrictor; it narrows the lung passages. While vaping nicotine avoids many of the harmful components of cigarette smoke (soot particles, carbon monoxide, resinous “tar”) it cannot avoid the effects of nicotine itself on the lungs.
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It can if there’s no nicotine in it. It seems like this should be obvious.
obviously, inhaling smokes is bad for your health.
My biggest problem with vaping is that there’s basically no distinction made between ecigarettes that this article addresses and vaping dry herbs… would love to read up on it and any possible health concerns but rarely see it discussed
If you mean cannabis, it’s worth noting that the active ingredients in cannabis and tobacco have opposite effects on the lungs. THC is a bronchodilator (opens lung passages) while nicotine is a bronchoconstrictor (narrows them).
This difference even shows up in smoking. Just consider the difference between the big lung-emptying coughs of a pot smoker who takes too heavy of a bong hit, and the tight hacking coughs of a cigarette smoker.
Also; very few people vape pot more that once-twice a day. Nicotine vapers are addicted and do it multiple times a day.
In my experience, there are a lot more than a few people who smoke weed constantly.
Maybe it’s just luck, but I know a ton of people do or did this. Personally I’d consider myself to be highly addicted, but that could be due to the constant physical pain I’m in. Once your tolerance maxes out you need to smoke the same amount as nicotine in my mind - the urge is very much the same. I’m also fairly certain the only people who would be able to tell I’m constantly ripped are other stoners (source - employment). If I had to guess, you probably know people like this but they would never tell you due to stigma / fear of getting in trouble.
I switched to vaping / dabbing like 6 years ago as I was having issues with smoking so much. While it’s been better using concentrates, I think it’s safe to say my lungs are completely fucked 🙂
I have to be completely ripped for anyone to be able to tell at this point. The stereotypes of giggling clueless stoners is really only true for early on in ones weed career or very occasional smokers. After a few years of smoking, functioning normally while high isn’t the problem, at least in my experience. The majority of my coworkers in most of the jobs I’ve had were either stoned all the time, functional alcoholics, or both. Obviously that’s anecdotal, and I do work in tech, but even if the average is just half my experience there are a ton of people working high everywhere
I’ve smoked weed for a long time, not hugely regularly but maybe once a week or something. When I’m high, my masking (ADHD/autism) goes completely out the window, so I talk all sorts of nonsense. Would not be able to pass as sober lol.
That’s actually wild to me, also ADHD/autism, but if anything I’ve gotten better at masking since I started smoking daily. But everybody’s brain reacts differently, definitely get abstaining in that case though
I don’t think it’s reason enough to abstain completely, just something I should do at home when i’m chilling and not gotta interact with poor unprepared people who don’t know me hehe.
The two friends I have with ADHD behave in a really similar way. All three of us just have a conversation with ourselves featuring little bits and pieces from the other people’s conversations… meanwhile my neurotypical friends are just chilling quietly.
Could also depend on sativa/indica of course!
If you are talking about cannabis, there is some information out there on how vaping impacts health. I just did a quick Google search and found it…I’m sure there’s better evidence available out there, although it may be more anecdotal.
Are they even talking about vaping dry herbs or thc e-cigarettes?
Yeah I guess I meant more it just doesn’t get nearly as much attention, but you’re right there’s some starting and that’s quite nice
About 3,000 adolescents in Texas, ages 13 to 17, were questioned between 2015 and 2019. The researchers compared the results with responses from more than 32,000 teens in the broader United States.
To me this appears garbled in the usual science journalism way, although it doesn’t change the overall gist of it which seems legit. They analyzed each population separately and found significant results in both populations. Reported vaping was associated with an additional chance of asthma of something approximately like 0.1% to 3% at the 95% confidence interval among US adolescents, the exact range depending on numbers not included in the excerpt provided on Science Direct.
Edit: I initially thought the 15-19 age range, being the only one I saw mentioned in the excerpt, was the one studied. That does not appear to be the case. That complicates things in a way that makes it unclear precisely where the bounds of that confidence interval are when described in a way that quantifies the overall public health risk. Read the full study if you need more precise information.
Fucking shocker.
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Shit. Is that it? I need to quit.
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Wait until they learn out about lung cancer
Have there been any confirmed links to vaping and lung cancer yet? Last I heard there was little evidence to suggest a relation.
Nope
Vapes contain petroleum-based compounds,… those would never raise the risks of cancers.
Yeah, there’s no real evidence, just a concern that it may cause cancer. But still, don’t vape because it’s not healthy.
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It’s a cross-sectional study and makes no mention of the timing of vaping vs asthma diagnosis. Which suggests they did not look at timing, a pretty important element of any claims which hint at possible causal effects.
It’s not necessarily the same story but it’s very reminiscent of this retracted study, which claimed to have found a link between vaping and heart attacks without checking which came first. In the case of heart disease, an obvious interpretation is that a lot of people quit smoking after they run into heart troubles, and vaping is a very effective way to quit for many people. The authors’ failure to satisfactorily address that obvious point is what caused the retraction.
There was a systematic review of the asthma question published last year: Association Between E-Cigarettes and Asthma in Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. The results of this study are consistent with that review but all of the included studies are cross-sectional so they all have the same weakness when it comes to considering causality. Which is kind of weird because it shouldn’t be that hard to establish the timing of a diagnosis of asthma.
One possible causal pathway isn’t vaping itself but the use of flavour chemicals called diketones (the best known being diacetyl), which are known to cause COPD in food factory workers. Asthma isn’t COPD but the diagnostic criteria are a bit woolly (asthma is intermittent, COPD is permanent but can still fluctuate in severity of symptoms). Diketones are one of the very real risks of vaping if manufacturers are careless but it is dismissed by too many vapers (and manufacturers) who are jaded by the avalanche of scare stories based on ridiculously bad science. It’s also barely been addressed by regulatory authorities (because Big Food is still fighting off compensation claims).
I have no idea what the ‘correct’ answer is here but this study, and others like it, is not well-designed for causal claims and it is strange that there don’t seem to be any studies which include timing as a variable. It’s always difficult to prove causality with observational designs but cause happening before event is pretty fundamental and not particularly difficult to include.
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[surprised pickachu face]
