E-Cigarettes Can Be a 'Gateway' to Conventional Smoking, Study Reveals

(Photo: Silviarita)

Living every day, doing work in our surroundings' current situation, it is very stressful to wake up with bad news. Cigarettes have been some people's companions in coping with stress. According to Smoke Free, people usually use tobacco for many reasons like stress relief, pleasure, or social situations. After many years of tobacco use, e-cigarettes were invented as a substitute for tobacco. However, a new study reveals that e-cigarette use is connected to a higher risk of cigarette smoking among adolescents with no plan of taking upon conventional smoking.

ALSO READ: Flavorings Mixed with E-cigarette Liquids Are Toxic, Says Study

In a release, the study's lead author and pediatric resident at Children's National Hospital Olusegun Owotomo, MD, Ph.D., MPH, the study show that adolescent e-cigarette users later lead to conventional cigarette smoking are not those who would likely to smoke a cigarette. He added that their study shows that e-cigarettes can incline adolescents to cigarette smoking even though they do not have any prior intentions.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), e-cigarettes have potential benefits for adults who smoke and are not pregnant if used as a substitute for regular cigarettes. They added that this device's use is not safe for youth, young adults, pregnant adults, and others who do not use tobacco products. They also emphasized that scientists need to study whether e-cigarettes are effective in helping adults quit smoking.

Research Methods And Results

According to the release, the researcher investigated the data from 8 thousand American adolescents aging from 12 to 17 who had never smoked. Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health, a collaboration of National Institutes of Health (NIH) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) collaborative nationally representative prospective cohort study of tobacco use from 2014-2016 collected the data used in the study which they found out that e-cigarette users who do not intent to switch in conventional smoking have more than four times more likely to progress in that area.

The study added that the use of the smoking device e-cigarette has a new risk factor for nicotine use disorder. According to a study published in 2019 with the CDC, about 4.9 million middle and high school students were users of tobacco products in 2018. CDC also mentioned that about 480 thousand deaths annually in the United States are cigarette smoking. They added that 41 thousand deaths per year are caused by secondhand smoke exposure.

According to Dr. Owotomo, abstinence from e-cigarettes can safeguard the teens from being conventional smokers. He added that Pediatricians are the best ones to educates patients and families on the clinical and psychosocial repercussions of using e-cigarettes.

E-Cigarette vs. Cigarette

Also called vape, e-cigarettes are somehow a great move when substituting it from cigarettes, although more studies are needed to support this. Cigarette's harmful effects are widely known, and for some countries, photos of its effect on the body are included in the packaging to discourage occasional use. According to the American Heart Organization, most e-cigarettes still deliver nicotine, which is the harmful chemical present in tobacco products. CDC confirmed 60 deaths in patients using this device because of lung injuries. John Hopkins Medicine said that E-cigarettes or vapes are less harmful than any tobacco product, but they stressed that it still not safe.

The bottom line is, try to avoid smoking even though you use tobacco products or e-cigarettes because they both still have harmful effects.

Check out more news and information on Smoking on MD News Daily.