Young e-cigarette users more likely to become tobacco users says new study

HEALTH

Young e-cigarette users more likely to become tobacco users says new study

Relaxnews Published Monday, July 31, 2017 9:09AM EDT

New U.K. research has found that young people who have tried an e-cigarette are more likely to go on to smoke cigarettes. (6okean / Istock.com)

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While results of a recent report published in the British Medical Journal showed that U.S. adult e-cigarette users were more likely than non-users to try to quit smoking (and succeed at quitting for at least three months), the devices remain a source of concern when it comes to young users, as a U.K. study published last week suggests that teenagers who have tried an e-cigarette are more likely to go on to smoke tobacco cigarettes.

Led by the University of Stirling along with researchers from the Unversities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, and ScotCen, the results mirror those found in eight previous US studies.

The team looked at pupils at four Scottish secondary schools aged between 11 and 18 years old, surveying the participants in 2015 and then again 12 months later.

They found in the initial 2015 survey that among the 2,125 pupils who had never smoked a cigarette, 183 (8.6 per cent) said that they had tried an e-cigarette and 1,942 had not.

In the 2016 survey, 74 (40.4 per cent) of those who had tried an e-cigarette in the initial 2015 survey went on to smoke a cigarette in the following 12 months -- compared to only 249 (12.8 per cent) of young people who had not tried an e-cigarette.

The results remained statistically significant even after the team had taken into account other factors that influence smoking including smoking susceptibility, having friends or family members who smoke, age, sex, family affluence, ethnic group and school.

"Uniquely, we also found that e-cigarette use had a greater impact on the odds of cigarette experimentation in young never smokers who had a firm intention not to smoke and/or whose friends didn't smoke. Traditionally, this is the group of young people least likely to take up smoking," commented Dr Catherine Best, Research Fellow at the University of Stirling.

Sally Haw, Professor of Public and Population Health at Stirling, also added that, "The greater impact of e-cigarette use on young people thought to be at lower risk of starting smoking is of particular concern" and now recommends further research to understand better how experimenting with e-cigarettes may influence smoking attitudes.

The findings can be found published online in the .