The e-cigarette vapour boosts the production of inflammatory chemicals and disables key protective cells in the lung that keep the air spaces clear of potentially harmful particles, revealed the study published online in the journal Thorax.
Vaporisers are different from traditional e-cigarettes in terms of the range of flavours, mixing, better user control and large battery use.
According to Professor David Thickett from Britain's University of Birmingham, many e-cigarette companies have been bought up by the tobacco giants, "and there's certainly an agenda to portray e-cigarettes as safe".
While e-cigarettes are safer than traditional cigarettes, they may still be harmful in the long term, Thickett explained as the current body of research is in its infancy and not able to answer that question yet.
"In terms of cancer causing molecules in cigarette smoke, as opposed to cigarette vapour, there are certainly reduced numbers of carcinogens. They are safer in terms of cancer risk, but if you vape for 20 or 30 years and this can cause COPD, then that's something we need to know about," he stated.
"I don't believe e-cigarettes are more harmful than ordinary cigarettes," he said, adding that "But we should have a cautious scepticism that they are as safe as we are being led to believe."
Although vaping is increasing in popularity, most of the current body of research has focused only on the chemical composition of e-cigarette liquid before it is vaped.
However, the study stated that the effects are similar to those seen in regular smokers and patients with chronic lung disease.
It showed that the vaping process itself could damage vital immune system cells, at least under laboratory conditions.
According to Thickett, the vapour produced by an e-cigarette boosts the production of inflammatory chemicals and disables key protective cells in the lung that keep the air spaces clear of potentially harmful particles.
The vapour then impairs the activity of alveolar macrophages -- which engulf and remove dust particles, bacteria -- and allergens that have evaded the other mechanical defences of the respiratory tract.
The findings suggested that while further research is needed to better understand the long-term health impact of vaping on people, e-cigarette vapour may be more harmful than we think.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is in the process of drafting new regulations to remove flavored e-cigarettes from the market, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told journalists at the White House on Wednesday, Efe news reported.
Once the rules are published, the industry and vendors will have 30 days to comply, the secretary said during a meeting in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump and the acting commissioner of the FDA, Ned Sharpless.
"We can't allow people to get sick and we can't have our youth be so affected," Trump said. "People are dying from vaping, so we're looking at it very closely."
First lady Melania Trump spoke out about the dangers of vaping earlier this week.
"That's how the first lady got involved. She's got a son, together, that is a beautiful young man and she feels very, very strongly about it," the president said, referring to the Trumps' 13-year-old son, Barron.
"She's seen it. We're both reading it, a lot of people are reading it. But people are dying with vaping so we're looking at it very, very closely," the president said.
The FDA has yet to regulate e-cigarettes and has regarded the tobacco-flavoured versions as useful in helping adult smokers move away from conventional cigarettes.
The move announced by Azar will entail a provisional ban on all sales of flavoured e-cigarettes, though the devices could return to the market if they secure FDA approval.
"Kids are getting access to these products despite our best efforts at enforcement," Azar said. "They've been going at it so we simply have to remove these attractive flavoured products from the marketplace until they've secured FDA approval if they can."
At least six deaths are blamed on respiratory illnesses related to vaping and health authorities have documented a total of 450 cases involving e-cigarettes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has issued a health warning against vaping.
Last week, Michigan became the first state to issue an order aimed at ending the sale of all non-tobacco-flavoured e-cigarettes within its borders.
Citing a CDC survey of teenagers, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that more than 25 per cent of high school students used e-cigarettes within the last month. The "overwhelming majority" of those users said that they vaped fruit and menthol or mint flavours.
Azar said Wednesday that his department will be alert to any increase in use of tobacco flavoured e-cigarettes by minors.
"If we find that children start surging into tobacco flavoured e-cigarettes or if we find marketing practices that target children and try to attract them into tobacco flavoured e-cigarettes, we will engage in enforcement actions there also," the secretary said.
The research data, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, also suggest chances of developing COPD may be around six times greater among people who vape as well as smoke tobacco regularly, compared with those who don't use any tobacco products.
"Although e-cigarettes may turn out to be safer than traditional combustible cigarettes, our studies add to growing evidence that they carry health risks," said researcher Michael Blaha from Johns Hopkins University in the US.
Cases of asthma and COPD are rising worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), with most cases of COPD resulting from traditional cigarettes.
To shed light on the risk, the researchers used national survey data gathered by the Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance System in 2016-17.
In the analysis, published in BMC Pulmonary Medicine, the investigators analysed data from 402,822 people who identified themselves as never smokers -- those who smoked less than 100 combustible cigarettes in their lifetimes.
Of these, 3,103 reported using e-cigarettes or vaping, and 34,074 people reported having asthma. Almost 11 per cent of e-cigarette users reported asthma compared with eight per cent of those who had never used e-cigarettes.
The people who reported to be e-cigarette users were 39 per cent more likely to self-report asthma compared with those who said they never used e-cigarettes.
Those who said they used e-cigarettes some days were 31 per cent more likely, and daily users 73 per cent more likely to report asthma, compared with non-e-cigarette users.
For the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the researchers analysed the same data from all the questioned participants.
Of the 700,000 plus participants, 61 per cent reported being never smokers, nine per cent current smokers, 30 per cent former smokers, more than three per cent e-cigarette users and two per cent used both e-cigarette and traditional cigarettes.
Of the e-cigarette users, about 11 per cent said they had chronic bronchitis, emphysema or COPD, compared with 5.6 per cent who said they never used e-cigarettes.
Among never smokers, e-cigarette users were 75 per cent more likely to report COPD, compared with those who had never used them.
For both studies, the researchers cautioned that they weren't designed to show that vaping directly causes lung disease, but only whether doing so was associated with an increased likelihood of having disease.
(IANS)
It is difficult to make generalizations about efficacy for cessation based on clinical trials involving a particular e-cigarette, according to the report.
E-cigarettes have long been embraced as a less harmful way to satisfy smokers' nicotine addiction, but all-time high youth vaping in the country has prompted calls for action to stem their use, the Xinhua news agency reported.
A total of 3.6 million middle and high school students report that they used e-cigarettes in 2018, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed premarket applications for all flavoured e-cigarette products that continue to be sold by Aug. 8, 2021.
The FDA suspended this month the sale of cartridge-based e-cigarettes in flavours other than tobacco or menthol.
Also, the report said cessation medications approved by the FDA and behavioural counselling could increase the likelihood of successfully quitting smoking, particularly when used in combination.
More than three out of five US adults who have ever smoked cigarettes have quit. However, less than one-third use FDA-approved cessation medications or behavioural counselling, the report said.
Cigarette smoking among American adults is at an all-time low (14 per cent), according to the report. However, it remains the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States. Approximately 34 million American adults currently smoke cigarettes.
The report found that smoking cessation could reduce the risk of many negative health effects, including reproductive health outcomes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and numerous cancers.
"I'm calling on healthcare professionals, health systems, employers, insurers, public health professionals, and policy makers to take action to put an end to the staggering and completely preventable human and financial tolls that smoking takes on our country," said Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams.
(IANS)
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, found that the collection of oral bacteria in daily e-cigarette users' mouths is teeming with potent infection-causing organisms that put vapers at substantial risk for ailments ranging from gum disease to cancer.
In some cases, though the study participants didn't have an active disease, their bacterial composition resembled that of people with periodontitis, a gum infection that can lead to tooth loss and even be a risk factor for heart and lung disease. The damaging effects were seen with or without nicotine, leading the researchers to suggest that the heated and pressurised liquids in e-cigarette cartridges create the right environment for a dangerous combination of microbes.
"Vaping is such a big assault on the oral environment, and the change happens dramatically and over a short period of time," said study senior author Purnima Kumar from the Ohio State University.
"Knowing the vaping profile is pathogen-rich, you're not doing yourself any favours by using vaping to quit smoking," she added.
For the findings, the research team collected plaque samples from under the gums of 123 people who showed no current signs of oral disease: 25 smokers, 25 nonsmokers, 20 e-cigarette users, 25 former smokers using e-cigarettes and 28 people maintaining both cigarette smoking and vaping habits at the same time.
The bacteria below the gums are the last line of defence against disease because they are the least likely to be disrupted by environmental changes in the mouth, such as food, toothpaste and tobacco.
The research team conducted DNA deep sequencing of the bacteria genomes to identify not just the types of microbes living in those mouths, but also what their functions were.The profile of the oral microbiome in the vapers who had never smoked, who were young (age 21-35) and healthy and had used e-cigarettes for four to 12 months, was startling to the researchers.
Particularly concerning were the levels of stress in the microbial community, which were detected by the activation of genes that contribute to the creation of a mucus-like slime layer surrounding bacterial communities.The immune system is used to seeing assembled bacteria look like clearly defined communities, but Kumar said that in e-cigarette users, these communities cloaked in slime look like foreign invaders and trigger a destructive inflammatory response. This change in the microbial landscape, accompanied by higher levels of proteins in vapers' mouths, signalled that the immune system was on standby to activate and produce inflammation" exponentially increasing the likelihood for the disease, the study noted.
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