By Cara Murez
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, May 5, 2023 (HealthDay News) — While public health officials have raised concerns about teen vaping, a new study suggests getting more people to quit smoking may be simple.
The research found that eliminating flavored e-cigarettes could reduce vaping use altogether in teens and young adults.
“Several regulatory agencies have considered restricting the availability of certain e-liquid flavors of e-cigarettes,” said lead author Alayna Tackett, of the Center for Tobacco Research at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.
“Our team was interested in surveying youth and young adults to understand their thoughts about the choices they might make if regulatory policies only allowed menthol or tobacco flavors in e-cigarette liquid products,” he said in a news release from University.
For the nationwide study, researchers surveyed more than 1,400 people ages 14 to 21 who had used e-cigarettes at least once a day in the past month.
They were asked which flavors they typically used from a list that included tobacco, menthol, cool mint, fruit ice cream, and fruit/candy, and what they would do if US federal law limited flavors to tobacco and menthol.
If sweet flavors were banned, 39% of respondents said they would stop using e-cigarettes. That jumped to 71% if tobacco were the only option.
Respondents who preferred flavors with cooling additives, such as fruit ice cream, were more likely to say they would quit smoking if tobacco were the only flavor available, compared with users of menthol flavors. This shows an important distinction between these groups, Tackett said.
“In this sample of adolescents and young adults, it appears that non-tobacco flavors may be important to their interest in and continued use of e-cigarettes,” Tackett said.
The researchers, of course, don’t know if the respondents would actually continue this behavior or start using other tobacco products.
Future research could examine this further in places that already restrict flavors or a more representative sample could be studied. The sample in this study was not representative of the population as a whole; it was mostly white and female.
Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States.
Preventing youth from vaping is a crucial public health goal, said Tackett, who also noted the potential impact of e-cigarette regulation on adult smokers who vape as an alternative to quitting tobacco altogether.
“Many adults prefer to use non-tobacco flavors to switch from combustible cigarettes to e-cigarettes,” Tackett said. “Flavor restriction policies should consider the best ways to protect public health while supporting interested adults in choosing potentially less harmful alternatives to combustible cigarettes.”
The findings were published online May 3 in the Journal of Alcohol and Drug Studies.
More information
The American Lung Association has more on the impact of e-cigarettes on the lungs.
SOURCE: Ohio State University, press release, May 4, 2023
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