Teenage vapers at higher risk of exposure to toxic metals potentially harming brain or organ development

Teenage vapers may be at a higher risk of exposure to toxic metals, a new study has suggested.

Teens may be harming their brain of organ development with the habit, US academics have found. American teenagers aged between 13 and 17 were included in the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study. Of the around 200 teenage vapers who took part in the study, 81 people reported vaping frequently, with 64 reporting occasional use and 45 reporting intermittent use. The usage was then determined by puffs per day - the most frequent users took 27 puffs each day, with intermittent users taking 7.9 puffs and occasional users 0.9 puffs.

Biomarkers in the urine of the teen vapers were then tested for the presence of metals such as lead, uranium and cadmium. According to the results, both frequent and intermittent vapers had higher levels of lead in their urine compared to those who only vaped occasionally.

Frequent vapers also had higher levels of uranium in the their urine. The sweet flavours offered in vapes also appeared to have an impact on toxic metal levels in teenage vapers.

Almost 50% of the group used fruit-flavoured vapes and 15.3% preferred sweet-flavoured vapes. Around 33% preferred a menthol or mint flavour. The study found that in fact, those who used sweet-flavoured vapes had higher levels of uranium in their urine, compared to menthol or mint vapers.

Researchers did acknowledge some limitations of the study. This included the presence of uranium in urine possibly being a factor of environmental exposure or dietary intake as opposed to vaping.

However, the report stated: “Despite the limitations, this study reported increased urine lead and uranium levels associated with vaping frequency. Sweet flavours might pose an additional risk of exposure to uranium.

“E-cigarette use during adolescence may increase the likelihood of metal exposure, which could adversely affect brain and organ development. These findings call for further research, vaping regulation, and targeted public health interventions to mitigate the potential harms of e-cigarette use, particularly among adolescents.”

Professor Lion Shahab, co-director of the UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, said: “This is a well-conducted study underscoring the need to carefully monitor exposure in e-cigarette users and highlights the fact that e-cigarettes are not risk free, and therefore should not be used by people who have never smoked, particularly adolescents.”

Prof Shahab added the findings should be read in context, including taking into account the limitations. He also noted that there was no control group that included teenagers who did not vape.

He added: “This study therefore cannot tell us anything about absolute increase in exposure to heavy metals from e-cigarette use in this population, only about relative exposure among less and more frequent e-cigarette users. Given that heavy metal exposure is mostly driven by the type of device used, future studies should investigate whether there are any meaningful differences between different e-cigarette types to inform regulators to curtail use of devices that expose users to more heavy metals. The relatively small sample size in this study meant that this issue could not be investigated.”

In research released by Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) in June 2023, 20% of UK children had tried vaping in 2023. This has steadily increased in recent years, from 15.8% in 2022 and 13.9% in 2020.