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 The findings, published in the journal JAMA, offer some of the best
evidence yet at establishing a link between e-cigarettes and
smoking, said Dr. Nancy Rigotti, an expert in tobacco research at
Massachusetts General Hospital and author of an editorial
accompanying the study.
"Adolescent brains appear to be especially susceptible to becoming
addicted to nicotine when exposed,” Rigotti told Reuters Health in
an email.
About 2 million middle- and high-school students tried e-cigarettes
in 2014, triple the number of teen users in 2013, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention reported in April.
The data sparked alarm among tobacco control advocates who fear
e-cigarettes will create a new generation of nicotine addicts who
may eventually switch to conventional cigarettes.
Big tobacco companies, including Altria Group Inc , Lorillard
Tobacco Co [LO.UL] and Reynolds American Inc, are all developing
e-cigarettes. The battery-powered devices feature a glowing tip and
a heating element that turns liquid nicotine and other flavorings
into a cloud of vapor that users inhale.
An international review of published research by the Cochrane Review
in December concluded that the devices could help smokers quit but
said much of the existing evidence on e-cigarettes was thin.
In the latest study, the University of Southern California
researchers surveyed roughly 2,500 Los Angeles high-school students
about tobacco use three times over the course of a year. The study
began in the fall of ninth grade, when the students were about 14
and not smoking.
At the start of the study, 220 students said they had tried
electronic cigarettes, the researchers said.
If the students admitted to using e-cigarettes, they were more than
twice as likely to report smoking cigarettes during the course of
the study, while the likelihood more than tripled for taking up
hookah and more than quadrupled for cigars.
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“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," lead author
Adam Leventhal of the University of Southern California Health,
Emotion and Addiction Laboratory said in an email.
Although the findings are not definitive, Rigotti said they offered
the first evidence in a study looking at the same population over
time to show that teens who use e-cigarettes are more likely to
eventually try conventional cigarettes than those who do not use the
devices.
E-cigarettes are available to more than half the world's population
and may generate $10 billion in annual sales by 2017, Dr. Andrew
Chang and Dr. Michele Barry, both of Stanford University School of
Medicine, wrote in a second editorial published with the study.
Children who try these products may be more likely to become
smokers, Chang said, and they also may be at increased risk for
accidental overdoses from drinking nicotine fluids intended for
e-cigarette cartridges.
(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Lisa Von Ahn)
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