Smoking e-cigarettes can alter hundreds of genes needed for immune defence, study says
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Vaping affects genes involved in upper airway immune defence – hundreds more than smoking regular cigarettes – according to a new study from the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine.
Several of these changes in the epithelial cells that line the respiratory tract are likely to increase the risk of bacterial infections, viruses and inflammation, according to the report in the American Journal of Physiology.
The study involved 13 non-smokers, 14 smokers and 12 e-cigarette users. Each participant kept a journal documenting their cigarette or e-cigarette use, and their urine and blood samples were analysed. After about three weeks, researchers took samples from the nasal passages of each participant to analyse the expression of genes important for immune responses.
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The researchers found smoking cigarettes decreased the gene expression of 53 genes important for the immune response of epithelial cells compared to non-smokers. Using e-cigarettes decreased the gene expression of 358 genes important for immune defence – including all 53 genes implicated in the smoking group.
Lead researcher Ilona Jaspers says the findings cannot yet be linked to long-term health effects of e-cigarette use or the risk of diseases usually associated with long-term cigarette smoking.
“We know that diseases like COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], cancer and emphysema usually take many years to develop in smokers,” Jaspers says. “But people have not been using e-cigarettes for very long. So we don’t know yet how the effects of e-cigarette use might manifest in 10 or 15 years.”