One of the leading causes of preventable deaths is cigarette smoking. In the United States alone, cigarette smoking causes over 480,000 deaths annually, and 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure.
Over the years, cigarette smoking in adolescents has declined, but it seems that the numbers would soon be increasing again due to e-cigarettes, according to this study.
A new study, published Nov. 9 in the journal Pediatrics, finds that e-cigarette use is associated with a higher risk of cigarette smoking among adolescents who had no prior intention of taking up conventional smoking. These findings have strong implications for practice and policy, researches say.
"Research is showing us that adolescent e-cigarette users who progress to cigarette smoking are not simply those who would have ended up smoking cigarette anyway," says Olusegun Owotomo, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., the study's lead author and a pediatric resident at Children's National Hospital. "Our study shows that e-cigarettes can predispose adolescents to cigarette smoking, even when they have no prior intentions to do so."
Learn more about this over at EurekAlert.
What are your thoughts about this one?
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The smokers work, pay taxes, and pay social security while they're young. Then, when it's time for them to retire, the smokers don't stick around very long. Meanwhile, where does all of that social security money go that they paid during several decades of working? It goes to the old people who didn't smoke when they were younger!