A new study has found vaping more than doubles the risk of serious lung disease, even in those without a history of smoking. Photo: 123RF
A new study has found vaping more than doubles the risk of serious lung disease.
A longitudinal study published by Oxford University has found people who vape, even without a history of smoking, are 2.29 times as likely to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Respiratory physician Dr Stuart Jones said it was one of the first studies to truly spell out the long term risks of vaping.
"The important part with this is, with a lot of the previous studies a lot of the vape users had been previous smokers and the data wasn't so clear, whereas in this study the vapers had only ever been vapers," he said.
"So this is the first major study to show quite clearly that vaping alone causes COPD."
Other studies have found smokers are three to five times as likely to develop COPD, meaning vaping remained a safer alternative to smoking.
"The rate of COPD diagnosis was higher in people who were smoking than vaping, so it's still not as risky ... but there's clear long-term negative effects," Dr Jones said.
But the most significant finding was that dual users of cigarettes and vapes had a higher risk than even those who exclusively smoked cigarettes.
"The biggest problem is in people who choose to dual use, so in other words they're smoking and vaping ... they had the highest risk of all, and it's because smoking and vaping damage the airway in slightly different ways, so if you combine the two you double up," he said.
"I think the message is simple: If you don't smoke, don't start vaping. If you're vaping, don't keep smoking."
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