E-cigarette use in young adults and adolescents: not so safe?

For several decades, it has been well known that smoking causes irreversible obstructive lung damage in adults1 and is associated with mild airway obstruction and slowed lung function development in adolescents.2 Despite the more than 1% per year decline in age-standardised tobacco smoke exposure between 2010 and 2019, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study reported that tobacco (smoked, secondhand and chewing) was the leading risk factor globally for attributable deaths, accounting for 8.71 million deaths, that is, 15.4% of all deaths in 2019.3 This smoking landscape did not yet consider the e-cigarette, invented by Chinese Pharmacist Hon Lik in the early 2000s.E-cigarettes have risen steadily in popularity worldwide, in part due to their interest as an alternative to cigarettes and as a tool for smoking cessation, given their depiction as safer than cigarettes. The devices are now available in multiple...
Source: Thorax - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Thorax Editorial Source Type: research