Vaping Is Harming College Students’ Brains, Study Shows

Vaping may look cool when you’re young, but it appears to be dulling the brains of college students, a new study warns.

College students who vape have lower cognitive function scores than those who don’t, researchers reported Sunday at the American Neurological Association’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

And the more students vape, the lower they score on tests of learning, memory, problem-solving and critical thinking, researchers found.

Students who vaped 10 to 20 puffs per day had scores 9% lower than those who did not vape or smoke, while those who vaped more than 20 puffs a day had scores nearly 14% lower, researchers found.

“We believe our research marks a before-and-after in the field of studying cognitive function regarding vaping,” said lead researcher Linker Vinan Paucar, a medical student at Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil in Ecuador.

Previous studies have shown that smoking can affect brain function by shrinking the brain and lowering blood flow to brain cells, researchers said in background notes. Nicotine also causes neurotoxicity that damages brain cells.

The risk might be even greater in people who vape, Paucar said.

“People in the study who had previously smoked cigarettes typically smoked three or four a week, but with vaping, they now smoke double, triple or more, especially if they smoke and vape,” Paucar said.

“Electronic cigarettes with up to 20,000 puffs are supposed to last three months, but we found many students finished them before the first month and started using others,” Paucar said.

For the study, researchers performed cognitive testing on more than 400 college students ages 18 to 30 in Ecuador. Of them, 64 only vaped, 31 only smoked cigarettes and 111 both smoked and vaped.

Results showed that those who vaped, smoked or did both reliably scored lower on cognitive tests than those who didn’t smoke or vape.

“It will be important to study vaping in other college students, including those who are Black, white or Asian and Pacific islander,” Paucar said in a meeting news release.

Because these findings were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The University of Texas has more on vaping and the brain.

SOURCE: American Neurological Association, news release, Sept. 15, 2024