Researchers of Severely Flawed Study Conclude that Vaping is Just as Harmful as Smoking and Causes Heart Disease and Dementia

According to an article published yesterday in the Daily Mail, researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University have conducted a study demonstrating that vaping is just as harmful as smoking, causes severely impaired respiratory function, and can cause dementia. 

One of the researchers was quoted as saying: "What we have found is the dangers for someone who keeps vaping are no different from smokers. ... At the beginning (of the study) I also believed that vaping was more beneficial than smoking. You see a lot more people vaping these days because they don’t think it’s too bad. Many will be horrified to know the truth.”

The study was not published or publicly released but was apparently shared with the tabloids. They are apparently the only ones who have seen the actual study. After some investigation, I found that this research appears to be the same or similar to work that was presented at last year's European Respiratory Congress annual meeting. In that study, the researchers compared treadmill respiratory performance among 20 vapers, 20 smokers, and 20 non-vaper, non-smokers. All were in their 20s and healthy.

The study found that exercise capacity and respiratory function were lower in the smokers and vapers than in the never smokers and never vapers. The degree of reduction in exercise capacity was similar among the vapers and smokers.

Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that "The smokers and the vapers had measurably excess breathing while using the exercise bikes. They found it harder to breath, their muscles became more fatigued, and they were less fit overall. In this regard, our research indicated that vaping is no better than smoking." 

The Rest of the Story

This is a fatally flawed study and shows how far certain researchers are willing to distort scientific rigor in order to condemn vaping. Do you see the fatal flaw in the study?

The fatal flaw is that the researchers apparently failed to confirm that the vapers were not ex-smokers. Because the overwhelming majority of vapers are using e-cigarettes in an attempt to quit smoking, it is highly likely that the vapers in this study were ex-smokers. Because of their young age, they likely quit smoking quite recently, perhaps 2-3 years earlier.

Thus, this study did not show that vaping is no better than smoking. Instead, what it showed was that the respiratory function and exercise capacity of ex-smokers takes a while to return to normal. It does not go back to normal within just a couple of years. This is not surprising. The lung damage done by smoking is so severe that it takes the lungs a long time to fully recover, even after someone starts smoking.

The correct way to conduct this study would have been to compare never smokers who vaped with never smokers who never vaped with smokers. It certainly appears that this was not done since I would expect that if it were, the researchers would have been eager to point that out. 

Instead, they drew a wild and unscientific conclusion without pointing out the flaw in their study, shared the results prior to publication, and generated hysteria in the news that is going to be far more damaging than vaping itself, as this is going to certainly cause many vapers to return to smoking and many smokers to cancel their plans to quit smoking via switching to vaping. 

If this study is eventually published -- and no reputable journal would do so -- it will be too late to reverse these headlines. Therefore, I believe this behavior is irresponsible and should be retracted immediately. Even that will not reverse the damage, but it would be better than nothing.