Roughly 10.8 million American adults are currently vaping, and more than half of them are under 35 years old, a U.S. study suggests, based on a report from Reuters Health.
One in three e-cigarette users are vaping daily, researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Overall, 1.4% of people in the study who never smoked traditional cigarettes used e-cigarettes, as did 7.6% of ex-smokers and 14.4% of current smokers.
Men vaped more often than women; 5.9% of men reported current e-cigarette use compared with 3.7% of women.
Vaping was even more common among sexual minorities. 7% of lesbian and gay people were current e-cigarette users, as were 9% of bisexual adults and 8.7% of transgender individuals.
People with chronic medical problems like heart disease, cancer, asthma and breathing disorders were also more likely to vape than individuals without these common health issues.
A limitation, however, is that all of the data was self-reported and not verified by medical records. Researchers also didn’t know the type of e-cigarette devices people used or the liquids they vaped, which might influence health outcomes associated with vaping.
One advantage of the study is that researchers had responses from nearly 467,000 adults, making it possible to examine trends for subgroups like LGBTQ individuals in a way that wouldn’t be possible with a smaller survey.
Resource: kdal610.com
