Hospitalizations highlight potential dangers of e-cigs to teens’ lungs - Science and life

Science and life presents: Hospitalizations highlight potential dangers of e-cigs to teens’ lungs - Science and life Please Like & Subscribe if you enjoyed the video. The eight Wisconsin teens had become so short of breath that they needed to be hospitalized. Although the cause of their lung injuries remains to be determined, the teens had one thing in common: All reported vaping in the weeks and months before their hospital stays in July. “Some of these kids were quite ill and needed a lot of support,” including the use of ventilators to help them breathe, says Jonathan Meiman, a chief medical officer with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services in Madison. The health department’s investigation into these cases has just begun. But vaping as a culprit isn’t a stretch. With more adolescents using JUUL and other types of electronic cigarettes, sometimes frequently, “it is not surprising” that we are starting to see some children developing lung injuries, says pediatric pulmonologist Sharon McGrath-Morrow of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. “Studies already have reported more chronic respiratory symptoms and more severe asthma symptoms in adolescents who vape,” she says. For example, a 2017 study of more than 2,000 Southern California 11th- and 12th-graders found that teens who had used e-cigarettes had about twice the risk of having symptoms such as ongoing cough, congestion or wheezing or developing bronchitis, compared with teens who hadn’t used the products. The Wisconsin teens reported symptoms similar to those seen with a serious respiratory illness such as the flu, including fever, difficulty breathing and nausea. The shortness of breath got worse over days or weeks, Meiman says, finally requiring hospitalization. The teens came from three different counties in southeastern Wisconsin and were all patients at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, which alerted the state. Pulmonologist Laura Crotty Alexander, who sees adult patients, says that she and colleagues have seen multiple cases in the last several years in which patients came in with lung disease, “and the only thing we can tie it to is their vaping habits.”