Vaping Leads Teens To Cigarette Smoking In The Future, Study Revealed

If you think your teen, who only vapes instead of smokes, is healthier in the future, you're wrong. A recent study suggested that teens in the United States who vape - or use electronic cigarettes - are more likely to move on to traditional cigarettes, compared to those who never tried to smoke.

The new teen rite of passage isn't smoking; it's vaping, study says. https://t.co/xuEDmecn3Y via @usatoday pic.twitter.com/37LJcmnH5P

— USA TODAY Health (@USATODAYhealth) June 10, 2016

According to US News, a survey of about 300 high school students showed a troubling pattern of vaping and smoking in teens. The study's lead author, Jessica Barrington-Trimis, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California's Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science said, Adolescents who had never smoked, but who had used e-cigarettes, were substantially more likely to begin smoking combustible cigarettes over the next year."

She also said that the increase in the use of e-cigs could follow up with an increase in cigarette use, resulting to an erosion of the progress that health care professionals made over the last several years regarding tobacco control.

Due to these findings, the US Food and Drug Administration will be controlling the sale of e-cigs, and refusing them to minors by mid-summer.

Among the concerns, said Barrington-Trimis in the study published in the journal Pediatrics, is that the kids who experiment with e-cigs, could move on to more dangerous types of tobacco products, like combustible cigarettes. E-cig users are also said to be more likely to try other things like hookahs, pipes, or cigars.

The study, however, was met with mixed reviews. Peter Hajek of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in the University of London criticized the work, saying that the decline of smoking in youth over the past few years had been faster than ever, so it does not necessarily mean that e-cig experimentation prevents the increase of smoking. However, he didn't deny its plausibility either.

However, Barrington-Trimis said that Hajek's contention has not been proven by research. Instead, she shared, "We can't definitively conclude the e-cigarettes cause kids to smoke cigarettes. Those who had used e-cigarettes at baseline were substantially more likely to begin smoking cigarettes."