[ad_1]
“It surprised us, we thought we would find more negative respiratory symptoms in cigarette and e-cigarette users,” said study author Carol Boyd, co-director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking & Health at the University. from Michigan to Ann Arbor.
“Without a doubt, cigarettes and e-cigarettes are unhealthy and not good for the lungs. However, vaping marijuana seems even worse,” she said.
“Since many teens who vape nicotine also vape cannabis, I recommend that parents treat all vaping as risky behavior (just like alcohol or drug use),” Boyd said by e. -mail.
Vaping weed is associated with a newly identified dangerous lung disease called EVALI, short for e-cigarette, or vaping, lung damage associated with the use of the product.
The disease was first identified by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August 2019, when otherwise healthy young people began hospitalization with serious, sometimes fatal, lung infections across the country. country.
A link between the new fatal condition and vaping was quickly found, with a major role played by vitamin E acetate, a sticky oily substance often added to vaping products to thicken or dilute the oil in cartridges.
This was especially common in vaping products containing THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana.
“According to the CDC, 84% of EVALI cases were associated with products containing cannabis,” Boyd said.
Five respiratory problems
A fourth wave of the PATH study asked nearly 15,000 teens aged 12 to 17 to describe their last 30 days of using cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and weed, along with the total time they had. spent vaping marijuana in their “lifetime”. “
Each adolescent was also asked if they had any of these five symptoms in the past year: wheezing or wheezing in the chest; disturbed sleep due to wheezing; limited speech due to wheezing; wheezing during or after exercise and a dry cough at night that was not due to a cold or chest infection.
After analyzing the data, Boyd and his team found that “teenage lifelong cannabis vaping” use was associated with the five negative respiratory symptoms.
“It wasn’t true for cigarettes or electronic cigarettes,” Boyd said.
The study was limited by the original questions posed in the PATH study, which did not allow researchers to fully explore vaping cannabis over time. A household survey, the longitudinal study also excluded adolescents residing in institutions who “may have higher rates of cannabis use,” Boyd said.
Despite these limitations, “the current study had a large national sample and we found a strong association between lifelong cannabis use with ENDS (electronic nicotine delivery systems) and respiratory symptoms at a critical stage of development in young people, ”Boyd said.
Would these health concerns also apply to adults who vape weed? The study was not designed to test this, Boyd said, but “THC / CBD vaping is a relatively new behavior, and as a result, few people over 25 were vaping cannabis as a teenager. . We have too little data to make an assessment. “
That doesn’t mean vaping is safe behavior, Boyd pointed out.
“I am often approached by parents and teens who believe that vaping cannabis is ‘OK’ and better than smoking (a joint, a blunt, a dobie, etc.). And then they ask, “Vaping is safe, isn’t it?”
“My reaction:” You are wrong. We know that inhaling hot tobacco / cannabis smoke into your lungs is unhealthy and can cause bronchitis or life-threatening breathing problems. “
“And yet you seem to believe that heating chemicals (including carcinogens) in a vapor and inhaling them is healthy? My answer is, ‘No, that’s not healthy behavior.’ “
[ad_2]
Source link