Studying the Long-Term Health Hazards of E-Cigarettes

BioE Assistant Professors Jessica Oakes and Chiara Bellini are studying the health effects of vaping versus traditional combustible cigarettes.

While the FDA is primarily concerned with the effects of an addictive chemical such as nicotine on developing teenage brains, Northeastern researcher Jessica Oakes points out that in the rush to replace combustible cigarettes with e-cigarettes, scientists haven’t had a chance to determine if e-cigarettes are safe in the first place.

“The market is changing so quickly,” said Oakes, an assistant professor in Northeastern’s bioengineering department. “We’re having a hard time keeping up.”

Earlier this year, Oakes and fellow bioengineering assistant professor Chiara Bellini received an FDA-funded grant through the National Institute of Health to study the effects of e-cigarettes on the heart and lungs.

“We’re trying to understand whether the inflammatory process that is caused by e-cigarettes is less than the inflammatory process that is caused by cigarettes,” Bellini said.

Oakes and Bellini are investigating these potential long-term effects. But they don’t have time to run a 20-year study if they want to help users picking up the habit today. Problems such as asthma, emphysema, and cancer may take years to develop in humans, so Oakes and Bellini are using mice to speed up the process.

Read the full article here.