Augusta University Professor warns about long-lasting e-cigarette effects

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The FDA is looking to pull Juul E-Cigarettes off the shelves. They were originally created as a way to wean smokers off tobacco products. Researchers at Augusta University have been looking into the lasting effects vapes can have.

Dr. Zubair Karim, an assistant professor of interdisciplinary health sciences at A-U says, “There is no such remedy that we can take the alternative to the smocking pattern.”

According to the CDC in 2021, 2.06 million U.S. middle and high school students used e-cigs in the past 30 days.

A.U. experts began testing back in 2020 by exposing mice to the nicotine found in Juul’s and collecting blood samples.

Dr. Karim says the results are significant.

“What we did was take out the mice blood after the Juul exposure and we wanted to see the nicotine level and how much the level was and it was significantly higher,” says Karim.

Results showed how fast clots form in the blood after exposure, which triggered them to dig deeper.

They found that any organ that comes in contact with nicotine can have long-term effects.

“It may be the liver, pancreas, or the skin, anywhere it can happen and that will cause the life-threatening conditions,” says Karim.

According to Karim, nicotine is harmful coming from any source and even a nicotine patch will produce the same result.

“Even though we are not smoking and there is no smell, even though we are taking the nicotine in our body, so we are going to get the similar health impact… cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or cancer in the long run,” says Karim.

Karim says the banning of this product is not going to solve the problem, but educating society on healthy ways to live, will.

“Once we educate what is going on... How it is going to impact then we learn and after that, then they are going to change their behavior,” says Karim.

We have reached out to local vape stores to see how this would affect business if the ban goes through, but due to their corporate policies, they declined to comment.

We will keep you updated as this story develops.

Copyright 2022 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.