*** The article is shared by santelog.com (community of health professionals) we inform you that we have not verified the accuracy of the figures announced. For our part this clearly looks like disinformation ***
16% of teenagers, users of electronic cigarettes, declaring that they have never smoked “real” cigarettes, this is a conclusion, here, by researchers in Liverpool who suggests that the e-cigarette could be, for this target , a gateway to nicotine. Second conclusion, use significantly associated - such as smoking - with excess alcohol or binge drinking. This study, presented in the journal BMC Public Health, raises the question of the conditions of access for young people to the system.
While 1,3 billion people smoke real cigarettes, and half risk their lives, the e-cigarette appears as a hope for 80% of smokers who wish to quit and see it as an easier way to escape illnesses. and the risks of tobacco. Even if the questions of long-term health effects - including those of nicotine - and the regulation of the marketing of the device remain unanswered. On the other hand, experimentation and the risk of a gateway to tobacco among young people also raise questions, as a growing number of adolescents try or use e-cigarettes and that, among young people, its use is nowadays. 'hui higher than the consumption of tobacco products, according to the latest American assessment (source NIAID- Monitoring the Future). Thus, here, the study confirms that 25% of the 16.000 adolescents questioned have tried e-cigarettes and 16% without having ever smoked conventional cigarettes.
This is a cross-sectional survey of 16.193 young British people, aged 14 to 17, taking into account age, gender, alcohol consumption, smoking and parental smoking and use of the e-cigarette. The analysis shows that:
- 1 young on 5 - or 19,2% - experimented the e-cigarette,
- young people with access are
- 36% of regular smokers (cigarettes),
- at 11,6% of smokers who smoke while drinking,
- at 13,6% of ex-smokers,
- 23,3% tried to smoke, but without starting again,
- to 15,8% of "never-smokers"
The use of the e-cigarette is also associated :
- being male,
- to have parents who smoke,
- and alcohol consumption.
The link between e-cigarettes and alcohol consumption is particularly significant among youth who have never smoked conventional cigarettes.
These results confirm, for the authors, the recreational rather than the substitutive function of the e-cigarette among young people. The question remains the evaluation of the number of young people who today use the device rather than the real cigarette and the continuation of these behaviors later in life.
Source : BMC Public Health March 31 2015 doi: 10.1186 / s12889-015-1618-4 Associations between e-cigarette access and smoking and drinking behaviors in teenagers
