Monday, September 25th was World Lung Day. In light of that day, to spread awareness, University of Nevada Reno Medical Students and providers with Renown Health visited high school students to discuss the dangers of electronic cigarettes and vaping.
Three high schools participated. The presentations focused on showing models of lungs affected by chronic vaping, restricted airways and scarred lung tissue.
Some of the Medical students say a lot of kids didn't know the true effects vaping could be having on their lungs or the environment.
They say some kids thought vaping was purely water vapor without too many harmful chemicals, but in reality, there are a lot of chemicals in vape products that harm your lungs and cause long term damage.
Dr. Farah Madhani-Lovely MD, the Section Chief of Pulmonary at Renown Health and the Associate Dean of Clinical Research at UNR School of Medicine says “The dangers of vaping is all the chemicals that are in vapes, everyone thinks smoking's bad so let's go to vaping. So even though smoking has decreased... in our kids and population vaping has increased.”
Maria Rincon Olivares, a Second Year Medical Student at the University of Nevada Reno School of Medicine says a lot of kids are getting vapes through gas stations, friends and older siblings.
They’re not hard to buy and they’re not hard to get your hands on,” she says.
Olivares points out some kids start vaping so they don't feel left out.
“I’d see a lot of kids in high school in classrooms or at recess see their friends take a quick little puff and students will be like 'what was that can I try?' It’s actually pretty widespread for their peers to be introducing it to each other,” says Olivares.
he also says she's noticed a lot of kids start vaping and continue vaping way longer than they thought they would, saying “A lot of these e-cigarettes and vapes do have nicotine in them and nicotine is highly addictive. It’s not something that most people know but I think the first time someone tries nicotine there is a 90% chance they’ll get addicted.”
Dr. Madhani-Lovely says there are more chemicals in vaping than just nicotine, such as arsenic and acetone.
She says “There have been lung transplants because of vaping they damaged their lungs so badly that kids have needed lung transplants it causes something called lipoid pneumonia.”
Olivares says a lot of people think vaping won't have the same effects cigarettes have, but the reality is, you're still getting those harmful side effects from vaping.
"You’re going to get scarring of your lung tissue, you’re going to get inflammation, it’s going to be hard for you to breathe, you’re going to get light headed especially when you have that nicotine it activates that flight or fight response in your body and you become addicted,” Olivares says.
Dr. Madhani-Lovely adds “It’s awful... as a pulmonologist I’ll be in business forever at this rate because they’re all going to end up with lung disease whether it’s today, tomorrow, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, they will have lung disease.”
UNR medical students and Renown Health officials say approximately 21% of high schoolers in Washoe County report using electric Cigarettes and 75% of highschoolers in Nevada have tried vaping.
They say this doesn't come as a surprise to them.
Olivares mentions “Especially with the vapes that are colorful and flavored they’re really targeted towards the youth.”
However, they did have a great turnout at their World Lung Day event, they say many students were interested and encouraged to learn more.
Olivares says usually kids don't tell their parents when they try new things, but they'd like to see more dialog between students and parents in the future/
“When you’re a kid there a lot of things you might not know about the long-term effects of the activities you may be doing have, such as vaping, you might think it’s something fun for you to do with your friends but your actually causing permanent lung damage,” she said.
Dr. Madhani-Lovely adds, "We only have one pair of lungs, do you really have to smoke something and put something in them?”
They also say, if you feel pressured to try vaping and it's not something you want to try, it's ok to say no.
