Stories

According to the UN health agency, the tobacco industry’s approach has resulted in increased use of e-cigarettes, with nine out of 10 smokers starting before the age of 18 - and some as early as 11. “Considering that children spend nearly one-third of their waking hours in school, and much of the peer pressure they encounter occurs within these educational environments, schools play a pivotal role,” WHO said. Schools are in “a uniquely powerful position to play a major role in reducing the serious problem of smoking and other tobacco and nicotine use by kids”.

This is a contribution to a consultation and parliamentary deliberation held in Brazil in September 2023. I make five brief points in three minutes.

Vaping could lead to narrowing or blocking of blood-vessels, heart disease and premature ageing, a leading oncologist and specialist in lung cancer has warned. Ken O’Byrne [...] said “we all have to have concerns” about the explosion in vaping in recent years. “It is still nicotine and is addictive. Nicotine itself may be cancerous, the way it works in the cell. But, also, it may encourage cigarette smoking later on. So, we all have to have concerns about that. Certainly, in my own view, there needs to be much more strict legislation and control of the fashion of vaping.

The message that vaping is 95% safer than smoking has backfired, encouraging some children to vape, says a top health expert. Dr Mike McKean treats children with lung conditions and is vice-president for policy at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. He says the 2015 public messaging should have been clearer - vapes are only for adults addicted to cigarettes. Evidence on the possible health risks of vaping is still being gathered.

Cigarette smoking has a major impact on global health and morbidity, and positron emission tomographic research has provided evidence for reduced inflammation in the human brain associated with cigarette smoking. Given the consequences of inflammatory dysfunction for health, the question of whether cigarette smoking affects neuroinflammation warrants further investigation. The goal of this project therefore was to validate and extend evidence of hypoinflammation related to smoking, and to examine the potential contribution of inflammation to clinical features of smoking. [...]

Popcorn lung, formally known as bronchiolitis obliterans, is a disease that causes an irreversible narrowing of lung airways. This rare condition initially gained media attention in the early 2000s due to a cluster of cases among microwave popcorn plant workers. In recent years, news media have frequently purported a link between the disease and vaping nicotine. But is there really a connection between popcorn lung and vaping?