Vaping e-cigarettes is a risk factor for lung disease in adults, whether or not the user also smoked traditional cigarettes, according to a new study.
According to a December 17, 2019 article in Popular Science, researchers from the University of California San Francisco analyzed data from 32,000 adults from 2013-2016 and found that, over that three-year period, vapers were 1.3 times more likely to develop lung diseases such as chronic bronchitis, emphysema, or asthma than those who never vaped.
While those odds were better than those of regular users of cigarettes, pipes, cigars, or other tobacco products—who were 2.6 times more likely to develop lung disease than non-users—the study also found that most vapers also smoked regular cigarettes as well. These “dual users” were 3.3 times more likely to develop lung disease than those who have never smoked or vaped.
Joseph Allen, assistant professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study, called it “a critically important paper” because it confirms researchers’ suspicions that e-cigarettes are harmful to lung health.
“The reality is, millions of e-cigarette users are unwitting participants in an experiment, and we don’t yet know the results,” Allen said.
Read the Popular Science article: The first long-term study on e-cigarettes confirms that vaping is bad for your lungs
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