It also concluded that less than one percent of e-cigarette users were previously non-smokers, and found no evidence that they act as a route into smoking for children. Only 8 percent of the kids who never tried e-cigarettes had used a tobacco product.
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Their evidence finds that nearly all of the 2.6 million adults using e-cigarettes in Great Britain are current or ex-smokers who are using the devices to help them quit smoking or to prevent them going back to cigarettes.
About 9 percent of the student surveyed – 22 percent – said they had vaped in the past, and six months later, about a third of them said they had also tried a “traditional tobacco product”, such as a cigarette or a cigar, NBC News reported.
The study, which was commissioned by Public Health England, states that “vaping”, or the use of electronic cigarettes, has far lower health risks when compared to the usual tobacco cigarettes.
Leading author of the study, University of Southern California Health, Emotion and Addiction Laboratory’s Adam Leventhal said, “Our research does suggest that teens who use e-cigarettes for recreational purposes may be more likely to later advance to trying regular cigarettes and other smokable tobacco products”. In addition, it’s recognised their potential to help people quit smoking altogether, and says it looks forward to the day when the NHS can prescribe medicinally regulated devices.
The two academics said the evidence pointed to e-cigarettes contributing to falling smoking rates among adults and young people.
Kevin Fenton, director of health at PHE, said: “Smoking remains England’s number one killer and the best thing a smoker can do is to quit completely, now and forever”. Getting smokers to use safer forms of nicotine such as these can be highly effective in helping people to quit and something which we fully support.
“While unlikely to be completely harmless, we can be confident that any smoker switching entirely to e-cigarettes will enjoy significant health benefits”. If a smoker wants to give up, the financial incentive already exists, since e-cigarettes are cheaper than tobacco.
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This conclusion took some experts by surprise as some recent studies have showed that it harms the immune system in the lungs exactly the same way as traditional nicotine cigarettes.
