West Michigan's Morning News
The Dangers of Vaping
Let's talk about vaping, and what we know, and maybe what we don't know. This is West Michigan's morning news. Steve Kelly, Brett McKeowna back with us tomorrow. Tony Brooks in with sports. Smitty back with us in the next half hour as well. Healthy living expert in clinical research associate Mary Blake on the live line. Mary, thanks for doing this today. Hi. Thanks for having me. So, experts, children's doctors can agree that vaping is maybe safer than smoking, but that it could cause some long term damage if you're a parent or a grandparent and you see your children bring one of these things home, what's most important for them to know? Yeah, great question. So, one of the most important things to know as a parent is to, number one, dip information from your local public safety professionals on that's going to be physicians, that's going to be school counselors, that's going to be pediatricians, and understand those risks as it pertains to adolescents. One of the primary concerns is that as the lungs are growing and developing, you've got these tiny little hairs inside called cilia, and what they do is to push nieces and bacteria and viruses so that we're able to expel them or eliminate them through urine. And so, when adolescents are overly ingesting, babes or cigarettes, distilliate in the lungs, they get stuck. They literally get stuck together so they're not able to do that. And the long term concern is inflammation or kidney disease down the line. And Mary, part of it is that we don't know everything that's in that stuff that they're putting in their lungs, especially if maybe they get it online and it comes from some place and we got a lot of questions about that stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's one of the primary concerns. I mean, they have everything in them from all the high carbon monoxide, ammonia acetone, and since they're not regulated by the FDA or any specific agency, they could have any other type of flavorants or things to make them, you know, taste better or feel smoother. And because they taste better and feel a little bit smoother, a lot of people assume that they're a lot safer. Another thing we have to get better at even at healthcare professionals is kind of outlining. We need to say for, you know, what is that margin? There's one thing like, okay, it's a little bit and then over ingesting or constantly taking it. You're going to be in the same mealhouse as if you guess where the smoke's in it. And I guess it does bear us pointing out that some of it can have nicotine in it, right? And that's one of the most addictive ingredients. Absolutely. Almost all of them, an average base contains approximately 22,000 parts per million of nicotine, which does give you that highly addictive quality, as well as basal constriction in the heart, heart copy patients, anxiety attacks, diarrhea. So, yeah, they're definitely trying to hook you for the long run there. And it's just to me, sometimes, seems the shocking volume of stuff that can come out of a person's lungs and the pressure of that in there can't be that good either. It looks like a locomotive. Oh, absolutely. They used to do experiments in school that had smokers' lungs or the sun smokers' lungs, with cotton and some other things, but they would actually show us over time how it looks inside the lungs. And I was, as I was being earlier, it literally gets this sticky, tarry effect inside of your body. And it takes a long time for that to clear out. That is Mary Blake, a healthy living expert and clinical research associate. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you so much for having me.