Is your teenager vaping? Many people believed that vaping is less harmful than smoking cigarettes. Since then, new information has revealed that there are some health risks that come from vaping.
The Mayo Clinic points out that vaping can negatively affect health of teens. Part of the reason is because the vaping liquid includes nicotine.
According to the Mayo Clinic, nicotine dependence in teens and young adults is particularly concerning because when a person is younger than 25, the brain is still developing. Exposing a developing brain to an addictive drug such as nicotine can potentially lead to permanent alterations in brain chemistry. The Mayo Clinic states that this can disrupt the growth of the connections within the brain that control learning and attention, and could make the brain more vulnerable to other forms of addiction in the future.
The long-term effects of e-cigarette smoking (beyond nicotine addiction) have not been explored thoroughly. One study found that people who had smoked e-cigarettes for seven months experienced an increase in shortness of breath, cough and fevers. Cases of lipoid pneumonia associated with e-cigarette use have been reported.
Some e-cigarettes vapor contains ingredients that could be toxic, including nickel, tin, lead, benzene and formaldehyde. Long-term exposure to these substances in e-cigarette vapor could potentially lead to injury and disease, including cancer, and can affect reproductive health.
A study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that lung injuries from vaping most likely are caused by direct toxicity or tissue damage from noxious chemicals. The researchers studied lung biopsies from 17 patients who had vaped and were suspected of having lung injury due to vaping.
It is a small sample size, but it was enough for the researchers to conclude that the biopsies showed no evidence of tissue damage due to lipids (such as the mineral oils in some vaping cartridges).
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