London researchers are sounding the alarm on what they consider a concerning trend among Canadian high school students, finding more than a quarter are using e-cigarettes.
The study by researchers at Western University and its affiliate Brescia University College found 26 per cent of the teens surveyed reported vaping in the previous month, with 12 per cent exclusively using e-cigarette liquid containing nicotine, a stimulant and the main psychoactive ingredient in tobacco products.
“Vapes were initially marketed as a potential solution to tobacco smoking with claims that they could be a less harmful alternative. While we are still trying to fully grasp the long-term effects of vaping on physical and mental health, our study shows vapes are exposing youth to nicotine and putting them at risk of nicotine addiction,” Jamie Seabrook, the chair of food and nutritional sciences at Brescia, said in a statement.
“Youth who vape nicotine-free products tend to have a worse understanding of the risks of e-cigarette chemicals, which can translate to uninformed use.”
Vaping involves e-cigarettes, portable battery-powered devices that simulate smoking but do not burn tobacco. The e-cigarettes vaporize liquid chemical, producing a plume users inhale.
-
Local teen suffers ‘severe respiratory illness’ linked to vaping: Health officials
-
Teens cite peer pressure among vaping concerns
Grade 10 and 11 students were more likely than Grade 9 students to vape exclusively with nicotine e-liquid, while Grade 9 students were more likely than grade 11 and 12 students to vape with both nicotine and nicotine-free liquid, the study found.
The change in student vaping preferences over high school warrants further investigation, Seabrook said. It could mean that over time, students switch from a mix of nicotine and nicotine-free e-liquids to exclusively nicotine ones.
The study analyzed data from 38,299 students in Grades 9 to 12 collected through the 2019 Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey.
The study, published in the medical journal Children, is the latest London effort to research the impact of vaping on youth.
In 2019 local scientists and collaborators at Toronto’s University Health Network published a case study on a new lung injury believed to be linked to vaping, the first of its kind in Canada. The unidentified 17-year-old from the London region, who had been vaping daily at the time, spent 47 days in a hospital and narrowly avoided a double-lung transplant, the case report said.
Researchers at London’s hospitals are also studying the effect of vaporized e-liquid on surfactant, a substance critical for proper lung functioning, and found exposure to the chemical plume harmed its function.