Consumption of e-cigarettes among adolescents is linked to possible smoking

According to a new US study, the use of electronic cigarettes can increase the risk of progression to smoking.
Overall, teens who used e-cigarettes before trying other tobacco products were four times more likely to smoke traditional cigarettes after a few years than those who had never tried any type of smoking device. vaping or tobacco products other than cigarettes, the study team reports in JAMA Network Open.
"Electronic cigarettes can be a way of smoking and a size solution," said Andrew Stokes, senior author of the Boston School of Public Health's School of Public Health.
Overall, smoking rates have dropped significantly, Stokes said. "This is a real success for public health and in this context, it is quite alarming that a new product on the market potentially attracts a whole generation of tobacco," he added.
Stokes and his colleagues explored the influence of the electronic cigarette as part of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, a nationally representative sample of children ages 12 to 15 years who completed annual questionnaires between 2013 and 2016.
Along with questions about smoking and smoking, the surveys looked at children's socioeconomic background and attitudes toward smoking. They were also asked questions designed to shed light on their vulnerability to risky behavior and sensation seeking.
Those who reported using a tobacco product during the three-year survey were asked about the 12 products for which they had "tried the first", including traditional cigarettes, cigars, pipes, hookahs , chewing tobacco, snus and electronic cigarettes.
Stokes and his colleagues focused on the 6,123 children who said in the first wave of the survey that they had never used tobacco products. In the third survey, 6.1% of these children reported smoking or trying traditional cigarettes.
Just over 20% of children who had tried e-cigarettes had tried or smoked regularly before the third wave, and of the children who had first tried tobacco-free products, more than 21% had tried or smoked cigarettes before. smoked the cigarette. This compares to only 4% of children who had not used any type of tobacco product without a cigarette.
The new findings are "quite consistent with what we have already seen in this area in terms of demonstrating that people who experiment with electronic cigarettes, even if they initially swear never to smoke ordinary cigarettes, are much more likely to do so. the transition. to ordinary cigarettes, "said Dr. Brian Primack, director of the Center for Media, Technology and Health Research at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.