Older e-cigarette users are more likely to have breathing problems, research shows

A study by PhD student Adriana Eugene and distinguished professor Luisa N. Borrell found that older adults who use electronic cigarettes were more likely to report respiratory diseases such as asthma, chronic bronchitis and COPD. The findings are published in the news Preventive medicine.

The researchers used data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study to quantify the link between e-cigarette use and asthma, chronic bronchitis, COPD, emphysema, or other lung or respiratory diseases. They used age, gender and use of other tobacco products as modifiers of this relationship.

After adjustment, Eugene and Borrell found that among American adults, those who reported ever using e-cigarettes were 1.32 more likely to have respiratory illness than those who reported never using them.

When comparing those who had used e-cigarettes and those who had not, they found that older adults and users of other tobacco products were more likely to report respiratory illness than younger adults and those who had never used other tobacco products.

The joint effect of age and e-cigarette use on respiratory disease was statistically significant, indicating that this effect was larger than expected on the additive and multiplicative scale.

“This suggests that the relationship between e-cigarette use and respiratory disease varies with age,” says Eugene. “Any intervention or policy to reduce e-cigarette use should primarily target groups at risk for respiratory disease.”