In a new study, researchers found that e-cigarette users were twice as likely than people who had never used e-cigarettes to report having depression.
The findings come from a cross-sectional study of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2016 to 2017 database, the largest national telephone-based survey of randomly sampled adults in the United States.
Nearly 900,000 participants age 18 and older with information on e-cigarette use and depression were included. Data analysis was conducted in May 2019.
The research was conducted by a team from Johns Hopkins University.
The team found that current e-cigarettes users were more than twice as likely to report having clinical depression than people who had never used e-cigarettes – 34% vs. 15%.
Former e-cigarette users were more likely to report having clinical depression than people who had never used e-cigarettes, but to a lesser degree – 27% vs. 15%.
Results were similar in men and women and across different ethnic groups.
The findings also didn’t differ much across age groups, but the correlation of current e-cigarette use and depression was highest among college-age students — 18 to 25.
This highlights the potential susceptibility of e-cigarette users in this group to depression at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives but also warrants a pause in what this kind of nicotine addiction may be doing to children, high schoolers and younger adults.
The team says mental health plays an important role in overall health and wellbeing and this connection of e-cigarettes and depression raises even more concern about how these products will impact public health for generations to come.
Physicians should consider the routine collection of information pertaining to e-cigarette use during clinic visits, especially in patients with depression, and routine counseling for those who use e-cigarettes, offering support to those who express willingness to quit.
The researchers said the study provides additional evidence to establish an association between e-cigarette use and depression, which could have potentially significant implications for public health, clinical practice and health policy.
The potential mental health consequences may also have regulatory implications for novel tobacco products.
The study is published in JAMA Network Open.
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