Officials are investigating a spate of lung illnesses tied to vaping. Here are the other health risks you should know about.

Shutterstock

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration are investigating reports of lung illnesses tied to vaping, or using e-cigarettes.
There were 193 reports of illness across 22 states between June and August of this year. One person died.
Investigators don’t know the cause, and they haven’t identified a single common brand, product, or drug across all of the cases.
The mysterious lung disease isn’t the only risk of vaping. Read on to see how vaping affects your health.
Still, when compared against smoking, vaping still appears to be healthier.
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Hundreds of people across 22 states this summer have reported lung illnesses tied to vaping, or using e-cigarettes. Last week, health officials in Illinois announced the first known death linked to the illness.

Vaping is a highly variable hobby, however, making it difficult for officials to determine an exact cause. Investigators have not yet identified a single common brand, device type, or drug across the cases. That could mean that all of the illnesses were triggered by the same issue, or that each case is a different disease with some similar symptoms.

"Even though cases appear similar, it is not clear if these cases have a common cause or if they are different diseases with similar presentations," the CDC said in a recent press release.

So far, the available evidence still suggests that when compared to smoking, vaping is a far healthier habit. The practice involves inhaling heated vapor, rather than burned material. In general, vapers are believed to be exposed to far fewer toxicants and cancer-causing substances than smokers.

There are hundreds of different kinds of vaping devices

There’s an enormous amount of variety when it comes to vaping devices, ingredients, and brands — making it difficult to pinpoint any single cause.

First, there are the all-in-one style devices, where all of the necessary pieces are contained in the device itself. These popular e-cigs are sold under brand names like Juul and Blu (for nicotine), and Pax (for cannabis).

Then there are the modifiable tank-based e-cigs, in which pieces of the device can be bought separately, and users can customize everything from the temperature of the device to the drug ingredients. These modifiable setups have been linked with dangers in the past, including at least two deaths.

Finally, there are the ingredients that go into the devices, which can range from waxes to liquids to ground plant matter. Some devices allow users to pour in their own liquid or stuff in their own wax or herbs, while other devices simply include disposable pre-filled cartridges.

In some of the cases reported to health agencies, users said they were vaping cannabis when their illness occurred. But because marijuana is still illegal in many states, it’s possible that those cases are under-reported. Other vapers in the reports may have been using only nicotine.

In many of the cases, patients said they experienced a gradual start of symptoms like trouble breathing, shortness of breath, and chest pain before they were brought to the hospital. Some people said they also experienced stomach issues including vomiting and diarrhea.

A new practice with several unknowns

Vaping is a relatively new practice, having only became popular within the past decade. Because of its novelty, researchers have warned that there’s a lot we still don’t know about how the practice impacts the brain and body.

"Given their relatively recent introduction, there has been little time for a scientific body of evidence to develop on the health effects of e-cigarettes," the authors of a large recent report on the overall health effects of vaping wrote.

Recently-discovered health risks range from a heightened exposure to toxic metals to a potentially higher risk of a heart attack.

Last spring, for example, researchers examining the vapors in several popular e-cigarette brands found evidence that they contained some of the same toxic metals normally found in conventional cigarettes, such as lead. They also found evidence suggesting that at least some of those toxins were making their way through vapers’ bodies. Their results were published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Consistently inhaling high levels of toxic metals has been tied to health problems in the lungs, liver, immune system, heart, and brain, as well as some cancers, according to the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

In a study published last fall in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, scientists found evidence tying daily e-cigarette use to an increased risk of a heart attack. Still, the study could not conclude that vaping caused the heart attacks — only that the two were linked.

When it comes to the spate of recent lung illnesses, health departments are further investigating by testing e-cigarette products and samples they’ve collected from patients.

But vaping seems to have helped hook millions of teens on nicotine

Separately, vaping appears to have helped hook lots of new young people on nicotine — in some cases, young people who otherwise would not have smoked.

E-cigarettes have been tied to a large recent jump in smoking among middle school and high school students. From 2017 to 2018, the percentage of teens who said they’d used e-cigs jumped 78%, according to the CDC.

Because they contain nicotine, e-cigarettes are especially dangerous for kids and teens whose brains are still developing, experts say. In young people, nicotine appears to blunt emotional control as well as decision-making and impulse-regulation skills. That most likely helped prompt a warning about e-cigs from the US surgeon general in December.

The rise in youth vaping prompted a crackdown on the industry led by the FDA. The agency responded by curbing the sale of flavored e-cigs, which they’ve said are particularly appealing to young people.

"Ultimately, we expect these steps designed to address flavors and protect youth will dramatically limit the ability of kids to access tobacco products we know are both appealing and addicting," Scott Gottlieb, who was then FDA commissioner, said in a statement at the time.

NOW WATCH: If humans gave birth in space, babies would have giant, alien-shaped heads

Source: Business Insider – ebrodwin@businessinsider.com (Erin Brodwin)