
For decades, people turned to cigarettes in times of stress. Now, a preliminary study hints that young people are using vaping in the same way. The study, of nearly 2,000 U.S. teenagers and young adults, found that those who vaped nicotine or marijuana were more likely to report anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts. In fact, a majority of vapers said they’d suffered anxiety or depression symptoms in the past week, while over half had contemplated suicide in the past year. The findings leave open the chicken-and-egg question. “One of the challenges is in teasing out the cause and effect,” said Loren Wold, a professor in the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine at Ohio State University. Many of the young people surveyed explicitly said they’d started vaping to deal with depression — including one-third of those who vaped marijuana. That’s worrying, Wold said, since no one would consider vaping a healthy coping strategy. Wold, who was not involved in the study, was lead author on a recent report from the American Heart Association (AHA) on the physical health consequences of vaping during adolescence. There’s still a lot to learn, as vaping is a relatively new phenomenon, Wold said. But it’s clear there are shorter-term effects, including inflammation in the airways, blood pressure spikes and increased stiffness in the arteries. So young people who vape could be… read on > read on >