E-Cigarettes Weaken Immune System, Boosts Superbug Virulence: Study

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A new study suggested that e-cigarettes can reduce the efficacy of the immune system and boosts the deadly effect of superbugs.

E-cigarettes are popular to smokers who want to quit from smoking tobacco. Many believed that inhaling vapor is less harmful than cigarettes and that resorting to this device might help them quit smoking. However, both instances might not be the case.

Latinos Health previously reported that e-cigarettes do not help smokers quit the habit. Moreover, Counsel&Heal reported that, based on a new study published in the Journal of Molecular Medicine, this device exposes the human airway cells to damages.

The researchers at the University of California, San Diego found out that using e-cigarettes increases the risk of airways and immune system from potential damages. The use of device also enhances the number of deadly strains bacteria.

"This study shows that e-cigarette vapor is not benign -- at high doses it can directly kill lung cells, which is frightening," said Dr. Laura Alexander, who is the UCSD School of Medicine and senior author of the study in a press release.

"We already knew that inhaling heated chemicals, including the e-liquid ingredients nicotine and propylene glycol, couldn't possibly be good for you. This work confirms that inhalation of e-cigarette vapor daily leads to changes in the inflammatory milieu inside the airways."

The researchers used mice for their study. They exposed the subject to e-cigarette vapors for one hour a day and five days a week. The set up lasted for over four weeks, Medical News Today has learned.

It was found out that the inflammatory markers in the subject's airways and blood were 10 percent higher after inhaling the e-vapor. Moreover, the bacteria exposed to e-cigarette vapor were more virulent in mice with pneumonia.

The exposure of bacterial pathogens or superbugs to e-vapor caused them to flourish. The vapor boosts the S. aureus bacteria to form biofilms and, then, adhere and invade the airway cells to resist the defense of the human immune system.

Some of the changes observed in the subject are common in the airways and blood of those who smoke cigarettes. Other things observed are characteristic of human cancers or inflammatory lung disease.

"We don't know specifically which lung and systemic diseases will be caused by the inflammatory changes induced by e-cigarette vapor inhalation, but based on clinical reports of acute toxicities and what we have found in the lab, we believe that they will cause disease in the end," Alexander added. "Some of the changes we have found in mice are also found in the airways and blood of conventional cigarette smokers while others are found in humans with cancer or inflammatory lung diseases."