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Vaping may worsen gum disease risk

<p>A <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00075-22" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study</a> by a team from the New York University (NYU) College of Dentistry has turned a spotlight on the relationship between e-cigarette use and gum disease, the oral microbiome and the immune system.</p> <p>The gum disease known as periodontitis affects nearly half of all adults over 30 in the United States, while <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/arcpoh/national-study/report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">about 30% of Australians over 15</a> have moderate or severe periodontitis.</p> <p>Periodontitis causes gums to become inflamed and recede from the teeth, creating pockets where oral bacteria can stimulate further disease. Immune responses can drive inflammation and worsening periodontitis. In severe cases, teeth can loosen or fall out and jaw bones depleted.  </p> <p>Cigarette smoking is a well-known risk factor for gum disease, but not a lot is yet known about <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/researchers-link-vaping-to-risk-of-oral-disease/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" data-type="URL" data-id="https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/researchers-link-vaping-to-risk-of-oral-disease/">the impact of e-cigarettes on oral health.</a></p> <p>“Unlike smoking, which has been studied extensively for decades, we know little about the health consequences of e-cigarette use and are just starting to understand how the unique microbiome promoted by vaping impacts oral health and disease,” explains Scott Thomas, co-first author of the NYU study.</p> <p>The study compared 84 adults who had mild to severe gum disease at the start of the study and used conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes, or had never smoked either.</p> <p>The results suggest that while e-cigarettes may not be quite as bad for your gums as conventional cigarettes, they’re riskier than not smoking at all.</p> <p>The highest proportion of severe disease was found in the cigarette smoking group, but the e-cigarette group contained more cases of severe disease than the non-smoking group.</p> <p>Matt Hopcraft, an associate professor at the University of Melbourne Dental School and CEO of the Victorian Branch of the Australian Dental Association, says the findings are consistent with current knowledge about the risks of e-cigarettes to oral health.</p> <p>“Although the evidence base is weak, available data suggests an unhealthy impact of vaping on periodontal health,” he says, pointing to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33274850/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a recent systematic review</a>. </p> <p>The NYU study also identified certain groups of bacteria that were significantly elevated in the oral microbiome of e-cigarette users, including genera associated with periodontitis.</p> <p>“Vaping appears to be driving unique patterns in bacteria and influencing the growth of some bacteria in a manner akin to cigarette smoking, but with its own profile and risks to oral health,” says Fangxi Xu, the study’s other co-first author.</p> <p>To complete the picture, the researchers also measured levels of various cytokines – proteins that direct the human immune response. They observed correlations between bacterial groups, cytokine levels and clinical measures of periodontitis severity.</p> <p>For example, the inflammatory cytokine TNF-alpha was significantly elevated among e-cigarette users compared to cigarette smokers and non-smokers, and was also positively correlated with certain bacteria that were more dominant in e-cigarette and conventional cigarette users compared to non-smokers.</p> <p>“We are now beginning to understand how e-cigarettes and the chemicals they contain are changing the oral microbiome and disrupting the balance of bacteria,” says Deepak Saxena, a professor of molecular pathobiology at NYU who co-led the study.</p> <p>“Whilst we know the significant impacts of cigarette smoking on periodontal disease, and links to oral cancers, and the emphasis [is] therefore on assisting patients to quit tobacco, vaping does not appear to be a safe transition away from tobacco,” says Hopcraft.</p> <p><!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --></p> <p><img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=183098&amp;title=Vaping+may+worsen+gum+disease+risk" width="1" height="1" data-spai-target="src" data-spai-orig="" data-spai-exclude="nocdn" /></p> <p><!-- End of tracking content syndication --></p> <div id="contributors"> <p><em><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/medicine/e-cigarette-use-and-gum-disease/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This article</a> was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cosmos Magazine</a> and was written by <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/contributor/matilda-handlsey-davis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matilda Handsley-Davis</a>. Matilda is a Science Writer at Cosmos. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the University of Adelaide.</em></p> <p><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p> </div>

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E-cigarettes are less effective at helping smokers to quit

<div><div class="copy"><p>Sales of <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/society/twelve-myths-about-e-cigarettes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">e-cigarettes</a> – particularly those with high nicotine content, similar to traditional cigarettes – skyrocketed in the US in 2017. Proponents of e-cigarettes say this jump in sales should lead to a jump in those quitting smoking, pointing to some clinical trials as evidence of this.</p><p>Unfortunately, this didn’t work out in practice. According to a new <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-056901" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">paper</a> in <em>BMJ Tobacco Control,</em> e-cigarettes were linked to lower success rates for those who tried to quit smoking, and they weren’t any better at preventing relapses.</p><p>The study examines data from a US national long-term study on smoking. The researchers looked specifically at data from 2017-2019, on 3,578 established smokers who’d recently tried to quit and 1,323 recent former smokers.</p><p>“We found little evidence that smokers took part in the 2017 surge in e-cigarette sales, which was associated with the introduction of the high-nicotine JUUL e-cigarette,” says co-author Professor John Pierce, a researcher at UC San Diego and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Centre, US.</p><p>“This is the first survey in which e-cigarettes were less popular as a smoking cessation aid than FDA-approved pharmaceutical aids. Not only were e-cigarettes not as popular, but they were associated with less successful quitting.”</p><p>In 2017, over 12% of recent quitters reported using e-cigarettes to quit – either by themselves or with other aids. About 2.5% used other tobacco products, and 21% used pharmaceutical aids or <a href="https://www.cancer.org/healthy/stay-away-from-tobacco/guide-quitting-smoking/nicotine-replacement-therapy.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nicotine</a><a href="https://www.cancer.org/healthy/stay-away-from-tobacco/guide-quitting-smoking/nicotine-replacement-therapy.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> replacement therapy</a>. Almost two-thirds of respondents (64%) didn’t use anything.</p><p>By 2019, those who had used e-cigarettes were less likely to have successfully quit than those who’d gone cold-turkey – 10% versus 19%. In this study, “successful quitting” was defined as having gone 12 months without using tobacco products.</p><p>However, the number of respondents who were using or planning to use e-cigarettes to quit had nearly doubled – to 22% of all respondents.</p><p>The researchers stress that their study is observational – this data can’t show that e-cigarettes are the cause for these failed quitting attempts. But they do point out that their real-world data sits in contrast to other randomised clinical trials, which tend to slightly favour e-cigarettes over other quitting methods.</p><p>“RCTs [randomised clinical trials] are usually conducted under optimal conditions, which means that they may not translate to the effectiveness of the product in community settings,” point out the authors in their paper.</p><p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p><em><!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --> <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="height: 1px!important;width: 1px!important;border: 0!important" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=181614&amp;title=E-cigarettes+are+less+effective+at+helping+smokers+to+quit" width="1" height="1" data-spai-target="src" data-spai-orig="" data-spai-exclude="nocdn" /> <!-- End of tracking content syndication --></em></div><div id="contributors"><p><em>This article was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/e-cigarettes-us-study-less-effective/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Ellen Phiddian. </em></p></div></div>

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