Vaping weakens the lungs and reduces breath capacity, study suggests

Long term vaping weakens the lungs and may increase the risk of a chronic lung disease, a study has suggested.

More than 5 million Britons use e-cigarettes, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) — with popularity soaring among teenagers and young people.

While nicotine vaping is not risk-free, it is less harmful than smoking, according to the NHS.

But researchers at the Florida International University found vaping may damage how effectively the lungs process oxygen.

Scientists say vaping may heighten the risk of life limiting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — when the lungs lose the ability to properly move oxygen into the blood and remove carbon dioxide.

“As the e-cigarette epidemic gains more years, it is important to assess its long-term health effects,” study author Dr Wasim Maziak wrote in the journal Tobacco Control.

“This study provides preliminary evidence of the potential of chronic e-cigarette use to induce persistent changes in respiratory function,” he added.

For the study, researchers analysed lung function tests of 22 e-cigarette users aged 21 to 35 at the start of the study and again 12 months later.

Participants told researchers how often they vaped and whether it was daily and did a lung function test 12 hours after they last vaped.

The lung function test measured FEV1, which assesses how much air can be blown out of the lungs in one breath in one second; forced vital capacity, which assesses the total volume of air that can be forcefully and rapidly exhaled from the lungs after taking a deep breath; and the ratio of the two.

At the second test, the results indicated a significant reduction in FEV1.

Results also suggested that people who vaped more times per day had greater decreases in their lung capacity scores.

The study found vaping five to nine times a day was associated with a fall of 100 ml in FEV1, vaping 10 to 29 times a day was associated with a fall of 190 ml, while vaping 30 or more times daily was associated with a 240 ml decline, compared with those vaping under four times a day.

The researchers did acknowledge the study’s small sample size and that it lacked a tobacco-free comparison group. But the findings prompt them to suggest that their study “provides credible evidence of the effect of prolonged exposure to e-cigarette use on the pulmonary functions of young adults and its dose-response relation.”

Experts not involved in the study also suggested it should have involved more people and had a control group.

Dr Katie East, associate professor in Public Health, Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS), said: “This is a small-scale pilot study of 22 people who had vaped in the past 30 days, with no control group. Possible confounding with use of other tobacco products cannot be ruled out, since participants were eligible if they smoked five or less combustible tobacco products in the past month.

“While forced expiratory volume declined as vaping frequency increased, this trend was not statistically significant. Therefore, the study does not provide sufficient evidence to conclude that forced expiratory volume differs by vaping frequency. Finally, the absence of a control group limits the ability to attribute any observed changes to vaping.”