If you’re one of the over 100 million people around the world who regularly hits the vape, you might want to think about ways to start cutting back.
According to some recent research by scientists from Seoul National University and published in Nature Medicine, the use of non-tobacco devices like vapes and e-cigarettes to help quit smoking carries a strong link with the development of lung cancer.
The researchers analyzed anonymous health data from over 4.5 million Korean adults. They were split into three main groups: current smokers, short-term quitters, and long-term quitters. They were then categorized by whether they vaped daily during a 2018 screening in the Korean National Health survey, with adjustments to control for factors like age, sex, and prior health conditions.
In all, scientists found that those who had turned to vaping after quitting traditional cigarettes developed lung cancer at a rate about 56 percent higher than those who quit entirely. Alarmingly, incidents of lung cancer death among vape users nearly doubled, with a lung cancer-specific death rate 91 percent higher than non-vape users.
Of course, there’s an important group that falls outside the bounds of the study: anyone who got hooked on vaping without trying cigarettes first. It’d be fascinating to learn more about their fates, but the implication of the study — that vaping is turbocharging the chances of cancer among former smokers — is almost certainly cause for alarm.
While it may be easy for non-smokers to roll their eyes at the findings, it’s important to note that empirical data on the relationship between vaping and lung cancer remains relatively scarce.
“Although epidemiological and biological studies support the association between e-cigarettes and various respiratory disorders, evidence regarding the relationship between e-cigarettes and lung cancer risk remains limited,” the researchers wrote.
It’s an observational study, meaning that it can’t establish true causality. Going forward, more research is needed to say for sure whether there’s a causal association between vaping and cancer — but the early data doesn’t look pretty.
More on smoking: Scientists Say Test Subjects Were Able to Quit Smoking After They Blasted Their Brains With a Huge Magnet
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