Dalhousie study hopes to learn more about effects of vaping on lungs

Researchers are recruiting young adults to participate in a study

CITY news halifax ] Meghan Groff

Listen to this article

Dalhousie University researchers are recruiting young adults for a study aimed at finding out if vaping causes lung damage and respiratory problems later in life.

Vaping involves inhaling fumes containing thousands of chemicals directly into the lungs. It’s become particularly popular among teens, which is a big concern for parents.

Dr. Sanja Stanojevic is leading the study and told CityNews Halifax vaping was introduced as a smoking cessation tool but it has quickly become a part of our every day society.

“It really struck me at how little information we had for something that was so common and prevalent,” the assistant professor in the school’s Department of Community Health and Epidemiology said.

Stanojevic said this is just one of many studies worldwide trying to better understand the potential impacts of vaping so people can make more informed choices.

“When we vapourize the liquids that are inside these devices, those vapours come into our lungs,” she stated. “We know that things like air quality impact our lung health. We know that our lungs are really sensitive to everything we breathe every day.”

“So we think that vapourizing these chemicals will do something to our lungs, but it’s really difficult to prove that definitively.”

Stanojevic said spirometry is a fairly common test used to measure lung function and it’s good a picking up disease once it has been established, but it doesn’t do much to detect the early signs that something is wrong.

“We know in people who smoke traditional tobacco cigarettes, people can smoke for decades before these traditional tests pick up any lung damage due to smoking,” she said.

So instead, her team will be using a test called the multiple-breath wash out, which will help measure how efficiently the lungs exchange oxygen.

Participants will simply breathe in oxygen to see how long it takes for them to “wash out” the nitrogen in their lungs.

Stanojevic said the average is 10 to 15 breaths, but the researchers will be interested to see if that’s higher for those who vape.

“We know in individuals with chronic respiratory conditions, those early signs of lung damage result in the test taking longer and the lungs being less efficient,” she explained.

“So we have a hypothesis … and we think if there is damage in those small airways, this is the test that would potentially pick that up.”

The team is in the process of recruiting 50 people between the ages of 18 and 24 who vape, and another 50 who don’t vape or smoke and who do not have a lung disease.

Step one of the study will compare the results of the two groups.

“We’re looking to then follow up with those people in a couple years to see what happens to their lungs, either if they’ve continued vaping or if they’ve stopped vaping,” she said.

“But these preliminary results, depending on how quickly we can recruit people into the study, I’m anticipating we can have results in early 2023.”

Those interested can find out more by emailing hlungs@dal.ca.