Warning issued over new harmful lung illness EVALI caused by vaping
Vapers are being warned about a new kind of harmful lung illness caused by using e-cigarettes which is being referred to as EVALI.
That stands for 'e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury', which is a bit of a mouthful so EVALI it is, and unfortunately for vapers there are multiple recorded instances of it killing people.
Although vaping is meant to be a healthier alternative to cigarettes and it largely is, that doesn't mean that vaping isn't still hazardous to a person's health, especially if someone is vaping frequently.
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While better for you than smoking, vaping is not healthy thing to do and if you do it too much it can still cause serious damage to your lungs.
E-cigarettes affect your lungs in a different way to regular cigarettes, with studies into what vaping actually does to our bodies indicating that it could lead to an increase in pulmonary inflammation.
Inflamed lungs can lead to a person wheezing and struggling to breathe and the studies demonstrate that vaping is harmful to you.
With that in mind Yale Medicine says that lung illness EVALI has a link with vitamin E acetate, which is found in some THC vaping products, and when inhaled this causes lung damage.
The symptoms of EVALI include being short of breath, coughing, suffering from chest pains, rapid and shallow breathing, an increased heart rate, fevers and chills, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.
It's not a merry list at all, and many people diagnosed with EVALI require hospital treatment where they can have quick access to respiratory support and be closely monitored.
People have died as a result of vaping too much while others have been left with seriously diminished health including having to be placed on life support in order to survive.
According to ABC, autopsy reports of people who have died from EVALI have found their lungs to be 'red, airless and very heavy, with a weight more than double what was expected'.
Because the lung illness is relatively new, the long-term health complications from EVALI are still unclear, with plenty of studies into the harmful effects vaping has on the body still being undertaken.
There has also not yet been enough time to collect proper data on whether a person's lungs can make a full recovery given enough time.
Doctors have been warning about the dangers of e-cigarettes for several years now, and while they might be better for you than regular cigarettes that is an incredibly low bar to clear.
Joe Harker