New Research Reveals How E-Cigarettes Affect the Lungs

E-cigarettes can cause changes in the lungs at the cellular and molecular level, including changes in the pulmonary immune cell composition and altered gene and protein levels in the lungs, according to the findings of new research on mice.

New research published in The FASEB Journal indicates that e-cigarettes can cause cellular and molecular changes in the lungs. Specifically, prolonged inhalation of e-cigarette aerosols by mice caused changes in the animals’ pulmonary immune cell composition and altered gene and protein levels in the lungs.

Investigators found that even low exposure to aerosols from JUUL—a brand of e-cigarettes popular with youth and young adults—had significant impacts.

“The health consequences of vaping are not known. Our results show that inhalation of the vapor generated by a popular brand of e-cigarette causes widespread changes inside the lungs, data that further highlight that these products are not inert and may lead to lung damage if used long term,” said corresponding author Carolyn J. Baglole, PhD, of McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec.

Reference: “Chronic low-level JUUL aerosol exposure causes pulmonary immunologic, transcriptomic, and proteomic changes” by Terek Been, Bayan Alakhtar, Hussein Traboulsi, Thupten Tsering, Alexandra Bartolomucci, Nicole Heimbach, Sofia Paoli, Julia Burnier, Koren K. Mann, David H. Eidelman and Carolyn J. Baglole, 25 January 2023, The FASEB Journal.
DOI: 10.1096/fj.202201392R