People who smoke and vape are four times as likely to develop lung cancer as people who smoke cigarettes but don’t vape, according to Ohio State University (OSU) researchers in the United States.
“Our results suggest that vaping in combination with cigarette smoking accelerates the rate of developing lung cancer compared to smoking alone,” the team reported in the Journal of Oncology Research and Therapy.
They said the findings are the first to show how the combination of ecigarettes and cigarettes is far deadlier than the latter by themselves.
“Most people know that tobacco smoke contains cancer-causing chemicals, but overall, there is less knowledge about the chemicals that are inhaled through vape vapours,” said OSU’s College of Public Health professor of epidemiology Dr Randall Harris.
“Our findings provide the first evidence that smoking in combination with vaping, significantly increases the risk of lung cancer compared to smoking alone,” he explained.
Prof Harris had led a team that ran tests involving 5,000 people with lung cancer and a control group of over 27,000 cancer-free people.
“This study presents clear evidence showing that vaping in addition to smoking, can increase your risk for lung cancer,” said OSU cancer researcher Assistant Prof Dr Marisa Bittoni.
She described the findings as “especially concerning” because of how widespread vaping is among young people.
Most research has found vapes to be less harmful than cigarettes, with children less likely to be affected by second-hand or passive vapours than by smoke, and vaping touted as a better option than nicotine gum for smokers trying to quit.
However, recently-published US health data suggest that teenagers risk developing asthma if they vape. – dpa
