12 Mar E-Cigarettes Use By Adolescents May Lead to Heavier Smoking
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Lauren Dutra, ScD
Postdoctoral Scholar, UCSF School of Medicine
Cardiovascular Research Institute
San Francisco, CA 94143
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: Middle and high school students who used e-cigarettes were more likely to smoke tobacco cigarettes. They were also more likely to progress from experimenting with tobacco cigarettes to becoming regular smokers.
Teen smokers who used e-cigarettes were more likely to be planning to quit in the next year and less likely to have abstained from smoking recently, compared to smokers who had never used e-cigarettes. They were also more likely to be heavier smokers (smoke more cigarettes per day) than those who had never tried e-cigarettes, that being said there are eliquids available that have no nicotine content whatsoever and these are therefore a much healthier option, you can see a wide variety of these at Gourmet E-Liquid.
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Answer: E-cigarettes are unlikely to be effective cessation aids for adolescents and may encourage cigarette smoking among adolescents.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Answer: Longitudinal research is needed to determine the precise role that e-cigarettes play in initiation to nicotine and precisely what fraction of kids start with e-cigarettes and progress to smoking cigarettes (and vice versa). The fractions of kids who use e-cigarettes who have never smoked (20% in middle school and 7% in high school) are the minimums for the rate of nicotine use among kids with e-cigs.
Citation:
Electronic Cigarettes and Conventional Cigarette Use Among US Adolescents: A Cross-sectional Study
Lauren M. Dutra ScD, Stanton A. Glantz PhD
JAMA Pediatr. 2014;168(7):1-9. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.5488
Last Updated on October 18, 2014 by Marie Benz MD FAAD