[ad_1]
A growing body of evidence points to the health risks of using e-cigarettes (or “vaping”). But as e-cigarettes are marketed as a less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, it’s been hard to tell if the association between vaping and sickness is just a matter of smokers switching to vaping when they start experiencing health problems.
Now, a study by researchers from Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and School of Medicine (BUSM) is one of the first to examine vaping in a large and healthy sample of the population over time, independent of other tobacco products. use.
Posted in JAMA Network Open, the study found that participants who had used e-cigarettes in the past were 21% more likely to develop respiratory disease, and those who were current e-cigarette users had a 43% higher risk.
This provides some of the earliest longitudinal evidence of harm associated with e-cigarette products. In recent years, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in e-cigarette use among youth and young adults, which threatens to reverse decades of hard-fought gains. This new evidence also suggests that we may see an increase in respiratory disease as young and young adults age into middle age, including asthma, COPD and other respiratory conditions. “
Dr. Andrew Stokes, corresponding author, assistant professor of global health at BUSPH
Most previous research on the respiratory health effects of vaping has used animal or cellular models or, in humans, only short-term clinical trials on acute conditions.
For this study, the researchers used data on 21,618 healthy adult participants from the first four waves (2013-2018) of the nationally representative Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH), which is the most comprehensive national survey on tobacco and health. on e- information relating to cigarettes to date.
To make sure they weren’t simply seeing cigarette smokers switch to e-cigarettes specifically due to health issues (rather than vaping themselves causing these problems), the researchers only included people with no reported respiratory problems when they entered the PATH and they are adequate for a full range of health conditions. They also adjusted for ever using other tobacco products (including cigarettes, cigars, hookahs, snuff, and dissolvable tobacco) and marijuana use, as well as childhood and current exposure to second-hand smoke. but no. They repeated the analyzes among subgroups of healthy respondents who did not have self-reported chronic conditions and whose self-assessed overall health was good, very good, or excellent.
By adjusting all of these variables and demographic factors, the researchers found that previous e-cigarette use was associated with a 21% increase in respiratory disease risk, while current e-cigarette use was associated with a 43% increase. . Current e-cigarette use has been associated with a 33% increased risk of chronic bronchitis, 69% risk of emphysema, 57% risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and 31% risk of asthma.
“With a longitudinal study design and extensive sensitivity analyzes, the study adds to a growing body of evidence pointing to the long-term health risks of e-cigarette use to the respiratory system,” says lead author. of Wubin Xie, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Global Health at BUSPH.
Evidence of the health effects of vaping, from this and other studies, also underscores the importance of standardizing documentation of e-cigarette product use in electronic health records and prompting the CDC to develop international disease classification codes for the ‘use of e-cigarette products, so that suppliers can facilitate cessation discussions and identify adverse events related to e-cigarette use,’ says study co-author Dr Hasmeena Kathuria, associate professor of pulmonary medicine and member of the Pulmonary Center of BUSM.
Source:
Boston University School of Medicine
.
[ad_2]
Source link
