Vaping for just a matter of days is enough to harm the lungs' most delicate tissue and leave it more vulnerable to viral infection, researchers at a leading respiratory hospital in the United States, National Jewish Health, have said.
The researchers exposed human lung cells to e-cigarette vapour alone, and separately tested vapour exposure followed by infection with a respiratory virus.
Within 24 hours, the e-cigarette vapour damaged the protective barrier of the distal lung – the deep, delicate region where oxygen passes into the bloodstream – triggered cellular stress, impaired cells’ internal process for clearing damaged components, slowed cell growth and repair, and increased cell death, the study found.
Signs of lung stress persisted ten days after a five-day exposure period to the e-cigarette vapour ended, according to the findings, published in medical journal JCI Insight.
Prior vaping exposure also increased the “viral burden” of SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes Covid-19) and suppressed several antiviral genes following infection, the research said.
“Our findings suggest that even short-term vaping exposure can initiate injury in the deepest and most delicate regions of the lung,” said the study’s senior author, Dr Irina Petrache a pulmonologist and chief of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at National Jewish Health.
“Importantly, some effects persisted after exposure ended and altered the immune response to a subsequent viral infection.”
The findings point to biological mechanisms that may help explain why vaping has been linked to lung injury and greater susceptibility to respiratory infections.
Repeated exposure could potentially contribute to chronic lung disease by sustaining cellular injury and disrupting normal repair, the team said, though further research is needed.
Established in 1899 through Jewish community philanthropy, National Jewish Health is billed as the leading respiratory hospital in the US.
Located in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Frances Wisebart Jacobs, a Jewish philanthropist dubbed Denver’s "Mother of Charities" and local rabbi, William S Friedman, to care for impoverished tuberculosis patients.
Today it is the only facility in the world dedicated exclusively to groundbreaking medical research and the treatment of children and adults with respiratory, cardiac, immune and related disorders.
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