A man tests a vape as Juul brand vaping products are displayed at the Showroom vape shop in Jakarta, Indonesia February 17, 2020. Picture taken February 17, 2020. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan
There have been new researches about the effects of vaping lately. In one study, it was found out that important changes in the DNA of smokers are also seen in vapers. Another study suggests that vaping led to lung cancer in mice which may be generalized to humans as well.
According to reports, using vape nowadays has become a trend. People believed that using vapes are safer than smoking. In fact, e-cigarettes are very popular now among the youth that 25% of high school students are using it, according to the CDC.
In a study at Keck School of Medicine of USC, they found that people who vape exhibit the same chemical alterations in parts of their DNA and overall genome as with the people who smoke cigarettes. These chemical modifications or epigenetic changes can cause genetic malfunction- commonly found in human cancer and other serious diseases.
An associate professor at Keck School, Ahmad Besaratnia, Ph.D. examined people matched based on their gender, race, and age then divided them into three groups: vapers only, smokers only, and the group of people who have neither smoked nor vaped as the control group.
Samples of blood were taken from each participant of each group and tested for changes in two specific chemical tags attached to the DNA: (1) Long Interspersed Nucleotide Element 1 (LINE 1) for methyl groups in specific DNA; and (2) hydroxymethyl groups in the genome overall.
At the end of the experiment with 45 participants, the results showed that compared to the control group, both vapers and smokers showed significant reductions in the two tags. These biologically important changes detectable in their blood is the first study about smokers and vapers have regarding their similarities.
Besaratinia emphasized that "doesn't mean that these people are going to develop cancer. But what we are seeing is that the same changes in chemical tags detectable in tumors from cancer patients are also found in people who vape or smoke, presumably due to exposure to cancer-causing chemicals present in cigarette smoke and, generally at much lower levels, in electronic cigarettes' vapor."
An earlier study showed that vapers have abnormal activity in genes that are also observable in their smoker counterparts. Bersaratinia's team published last year their findings, that both vapers and smokers showed abnormal gene expression in a large number of genes linked to cancer.
Meanwhile, a study published in October 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) reported that 22.5% of mice exposed to nicotine-containing e-cigarette for 20 hours per week for 54 weeks has developed a type of lung cancer called adenocarcinoma. Abnormal tissue growth in the bladder usually seen in cancer was also observed in these mice.
About 6.3% percent of another group of mice developed bladder hyperplasia when exposed to a nicotine-free e-cigarette for the same duration; none of the mice developed lung cancer.
On the control group after 54 weeks, one of the mice or about 5.6% of the total number of mice in the experiment developed lung cancer and none showed signs of abnormal tissue growth.The researchers concluded that nicotine played a big role in developing cancer in the mice.
Since this study is done in mice, it is still unclear if the same will happen to humans with long-term use of e-cigarettes. It will have to take decades before scientists can conclude its long-term effects.
However, the vape can still cause other respiratory symptoms if not cancer. A recent review by The BMJ of previous research shows that the effects of vaping include various respiratory symptoms most common among adolescents such as increased asthma, difficulty breathing and other bronchitis-like symptoms.
Furthermore, it can also damage lung tissue or may cause the type of lipoid pneumonia just like the recent vaping-related illness and viral infections in the lungs.
Experts caution the public to avoid using THC-containing products because it is the most responsible for the recent lung injury. The Centers for Disease Control recommends against the use of any vapes. Whether e-cigarettes may lead to cancer or not, its effects are validated in the future.