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 The research, published online in the British Medical Journal's
specialized Tobacco Control journal on Thursday, suggested there may
be evidence e-cigarettes could be leading UK teenagers to try
tobacco smoking. But the results do not fit with underlying smoking
trends and drew criticism from external experts.
The findings showed that among teenagers who at the start of the
survey said they had never smoked cigarettes but had tried
e-cigarettes, more than a third, or 34.4 percent, said a year later
that they had tried cigarettes. This compared with only 9 percent in
the group who had not tried e-cigarettes when the survey began.
Yet the study researchers, led by Mark Conner of the University of
Leeds, urged caution in interpreting its results, noting that while
e-cigarette use has increased in Britain, rates of smoking have
continued to fall.
"While acknowledging that a causal relationship may be plausible, we
cannot confirm this based on our findings and the trends observed
over the same period in the UK," they wrote.
"Given the lack of clarity regarding the mechanism linking
e-cigarette and cigarette use, we need to be cautious in making
policy recommendations based on our findings."
LOW-RISK ALTERNATIVE
The global scientific community is divided over e-cigarettes and
whether or not they are a useful public health tool as a nicotine
replacement therapy.
Many specialists, including health experts at Public Health England,
think e-cigarettes, which contain nicotine but no tobacco, are a
lower-risk alternative to smoking. But the U.S. surgeon general last
year urged lawmakers to impose price and tax policies that would
discourage their use.
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Robert West, a professor of health psychology at University College
London, said Conner's team were right to warn that this latest study
did not show a causal connection between e-cigarette use and
starting smoking.
"It seems unlikely that e-cigarette use by young people is causing
more of them to smoke, because smoking rates in this age group now
are declining at least as fast as they were before e-cigarettes
started to become popular," West said.
Linda Bauld, a professor of health policy at the University of
Stirling, said the study did not provide evidence that using
e-cigarettes causes young people to become smokers.
"It simply shows that some teenagers who try an e-cigarette might go
on to try tobacco, and on both occasions it could be just once," she
said.
"If e-cigarettes were causing smoking, then the steady decline in
youth smoking we've seen in national surveys in recent years would
be reversed. But it's not - smoking amongst young people in the UK
is at an all-time low."
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by David Holmes)
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