Examining the effect of vaping and smoking cessation on Lung Health

Smoking is a one of the largest societal problems worldwide, causing cancer, heart disease and lung diseases - the 3 biggest killers worldwide. Smoking is also a huge financial burden, costing the UK £49.2 Billion/year in healthcare/social care and wider issues, including lost workdays and reduced productivity. With our population ageing, this problem is going to worsen. Finding ways to help people quit smoking is incredibly important. One way people try to quit smoking is by using e-cigarettes. They are a helpful tool promoted by UK health agencies for quitting smoking. Unfortunately, there’s been a recent increase in young people taking up vaping, which has shone a spotlight on the need to understand if they’re safe in the long run. Large numbers of people attending NHS services to stop smoking are now opting to use e-cigarettes to try to quit, even though we’re not sure if they’re completely safe. We need to do more research to figure out the potential short-medium term harms. Given often confusing mixed messages from governments and healthcare providers, it is critical we undertake this research so public health policies can be based on firm evidence. We will study a group of smokers who have no lung problems yet, but who want to quit smoking. Some smokers will choose e-cigarettes and some will choose nicotine patches. Most human studies on e-cigarettes so far have focused on their usefulness in stopping smoking. A few have studied effects on lung health at a single timepoint, providing only a snaphot of the whole story. We can measure the beneficial effects of quitting smoking on cells and fluids within the lung and in the blood. We don’t know yet what effect vaping will have on these markers of smoking harm. We’re going to look deeper, studying changes in cells, proteins, and even the bacteria in the lungs. It takes a long time for the human body to repair the effects of smoking, however some markers like changes in airway lining cells and immune cells change within 6-12 months. We will follow our participants for 12 months. During this year, we know we will observe remarkable improvements in changes in the immune cells and airway lining cells of those who chose nicotine replacement therapy (like patches or gum) to quit. We do not currently know how vaping will impact this recovery, but this study will give us a better understanding of how vaping affects smokers who are trying to quit, in the long run. We hope our results will help shape public policy, not just in the UK, but around the world. Smokers who want to quit, doctors, and policymakers will benefit from knowing more about the risks and benefits of using e-cigarettes for quitting smoking. This is the right time, the right place and the right team to undertake this important study. The applicant team has huge experience in observational human studies and are regarded as experts on the effects of e-cigarettes on lung health. The University Hospitals Birmingham Clinical Research Facility is the ideal facility to do this study. Finally, this is the right time, as our public health policy towards e-cigarettes is in turmoil, we need a complete understanding of how vaping affects the lungs of those who stand to gain the most benefit from vaping.