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<\/a>While studies have indicated that vaping can help smokers quit, USC researchers say the health consequences of using a e-cigarettes may be worse than widely believed. (Photo\/Pixabay)<\/p><\/div>\n
A USC study in 93 people shows that e-cigarette users develop some of the same cancer-related molecular changes in oral tissue as cigarette smokers, adding to the growing concern that e-cigarettes aren\u2019t a harmless alternative to smoking.<\/p>\n
The research, published this week in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences<\/em>, comes amid a mushrooming e-cigarette market and mounting public health worries. On a positive note, recent research found vaping is almost twice as effective as other nicotine replacement therapies in helping smokers quit. But among adolescents, vaping now surpasses smoking, and there\u2019s evidence that e-cigarette use leads to nicotine addiction and future smoking in teens.<\/p>\n \u201cThe existing data show that e-cig vapor is not merely \u2018water vapor\u2019 as some people believe,\u201d said Ahmad Besaratinia, an associate professor at Keck School of Medicine of USC and the study\u2019s senior author. \u201cAlthough the concentrations of most carcinogenic compounds in e-cig products are much lower than those in cigarette smoke, there is no safe level of exposure to carcinogens.\u201d<\/p>\n E-cigs and cancer: Early warning in oral cells<\/u> The researchers looked at gene expression in oral cells collected from 42 e-cigarette users, 24 cigarette smokers and 27 people who didn\u2019t smoke or vape. Gene expression is the process by which instructions in our DNA are converted into a functional product, such as a protein. Certain alterations in gene expression can lead to cancer.<\/p>\n They focused on oral epithelial cells, which line the mouth. More than 90 percent of smoking-related cancers originate in epithelial tissue, and oral cancer is associated with tobacco use.<\/p>\n Both smokers and vapers showed abnormal expression, or deregulation, in a large number of genes linked to cancer development. Twenty-six percent of the deregulated genes in e-cig users were identical to those found in smokers. Some deregulated genes found in e-cig users, but not in smokers, are nevertheless implicated in lung cancer, esophageal cancer, bladder cancer, ovarian cancer and leukemia.<\/p>\n E-cigs and cancer: What\u2019s next?<\/u> \u201cFor the most part, the participants are as curious as we are to know whether these products are safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In addition to Besaratinia, the study\u2019s other authors are first author Stella Tommasi, Andrew Caliri, Amanda Caceres, Debra Moreno, Meng Li, Yibu Chen and Kimberly Siegmund, all of USC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source:news.usc.edu Author: Leigh Hopper If you think vaping is benign, think again. A USC study in 93 people shows that e-cigarette users develop some of the same cancer-related molecular changes in oral tissue as cigarette smokers, adding to the growing concern that e-cigarettes aren\u2019t a harmless alternative to smoking. The research, published this week in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, comes amid a mushrooming e-cigarette market and mounting public health worries. On a positive note, recent research found vaping is almost twice as effective as other nicotine replacement therapies in helping smokers quit. But among adolescents, vaping now surpasses smoking, and there\u2019s evidence that e-cigarette use leads to nicotine addiction and future smoking in teens. \u201cThe existing data show that e-cig vapor is not merely \u2018water vapor\u2019 as some people believe,\u201d said Ahmad Besaratinia, an associate professor at Keck School of Medicine of USC and the study\u2019s senior author. \u201cAlthough the concentrations of most carcinogenic compounds in e-cig products are much lower than those in cigarette smoke, there is no safe level of exposure to carcinogens.\u201d E-cigs and cancer: Early warning in oral cells Besaratinia emphasized that the molecular changes seen in the study aren\u2019t cancer, or even pre-cancer, but rather an early warning of a process that could potentially lead to cancer if unchecked. The researchers looked at gene expression in oral cells collected from 42 e-cigarette users, 24 cigarette smokers and 27 people who didn\u2019t smoke or vape. Gene expression is the process by which instructions in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[496,317,2518,5899,88,2625],"class_list":["post-19607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oral_cancer_news","tag-carcinogens","tag-cigarette","tag-e-cigarette","tag-epithelial","tag-tobacco","tag-vapor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19607"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19612,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607\/revisions\/19612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oralcancernews.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nBesaratinia emphasized that the molecular changes seen in the study aren\u2019t cancer, or even pre-cancer, but rather an early warning of a process that could potentially lead to cancer if unchecked.<\/p>\n
\nBesaratinia and his team plan to replicate his findings in a larger group of subjects and explore the mechanisms that cause gene deregulation. He\u2019s also launching another experiment in which smokers switch to e-cigs; he wants to see whether any changes in gene regulation occur after the switch.<\/p>\n