Experts argue that any benefit from electronic cigarettes for people wanting to quit smoking comes at a high price, namely addicting youth to nicotine via vaping. A MedPage Today editorial by Anthony Pearson MD outlines the physician’s concerns about vaping for youth and adults alike.
E-cigarettes might be safer than real cigarettes, but if you don’t quit smoking you are worse off: “E-cigarettes are widely promoted as a smoking-cessation aid, but for most people, they actually make it harder to quit smoking, so most people end up as so-called ‘dual users’ who keep smoking while using e-cigarettes,” said Glantz. “The new study shows that the risks compound. Someone who continues to smoke daily while using e-cigarettes daily has an increased risk of a heart attack by a factor of five.”
Long term, it is anyone’s guess what the consequences of vaping on the cardiovascular system will be. As the The New Yorker article makes abundantly clear, however, the youth of America are taking up vaping and Juuling increasingly, and the National Academies are appropriately worried: “However, their long-term health effects are not yet clear. Among youth — who use e-cigarettes at higher rates than adults do — there is substantial evidence that e-cigarette use increases the risk of transitioning to smoking conventional cigarettes.”
