Vaping increases asthma risk by more than 200 percent, major analysis finds

Vaping increases the risk of developing asthma by more than 200 percent, a major new analysis has found.

Researchers from the University of Texas looked at the health data from more than 40,000 people of all ages over the course of five years. 

At the start of the 2022 analysis, none of the participants had asthma.

By the end of the study, they found that roughly ten in every 1,000 adults had developed the common respiratory condition. 

However, those who had used e-cigarettes in the 30 days prior to the final analysis had a 252 percent higher risk of developing asthma early in life, before age 27, compared to those who did not use e-cigarettes. 

In teenagers, there was no significant link between e-cigarette use, according to the data extracted from the long-running national Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study.

Dr Adriana Perez, data scientist and author of the study said her team’s findings may help them ‘motivate users to stop’.

The report was published in the journal JAMA Network Open.  

The myth that vaping is a safer smoking alternative has crumbled in recent years with rising rates of e-cigarette use linked to increasing lung problems. 

Vaping is believed to send thousands of irritants and metal particles through the windpipe, including chromium, manganese, nickel, and lead.

Asthma, which affects an estimated 25 million Americans, causes the airways to become inflamed, narrow and swell, and produce extra mucus, making it difficult to breathe.

Research from Johns Hopkins Medicine concluded nearly 11 percent of the e-cigarette users reported having asthma, compared with eight percent of those who had never used the devices. 

Further, of those who said they used e-cigarettes, about 11 percent said they had chronic bronchitis, emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, compared with 5.6 percent of people who said they had never used e-cigarettes.

Vaping nicotine has been cited as a safer means of smoking, as it doesn’t produce the carcinogen-laced smoke of a traditional cigarette. 

But a wide array of experts across the US have been warning of irreversible lung damage seen in their young patients who use e-cigarettes. 

One of those patients was North Dakota native Jackson Allard, 22,  who had to undergo a rare double lung transplant after years of vaping led to a severe infection that left lasting damage. 

He was on life support for 70 days before he went into surgery in January.

Allard’s grandmother, Doreen Hurlburt said: ‘At one point, a doctor said he had a 1 percent chance of living and we said, “He’s fighting, he’s fought for how many weeks we’re going to give him a chance to fight, we’re not going to stop any procedures or anything.”‘ 

Mr Allard this week issued fresh warnings to young people to steer clear of e-cigarettes and marijuana vapes that he says caused his lifelong health issues.