BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – In decades past, heart disease seemed to have a vendetta against a classic type of patient, quietly eating away at its victims as they indulged in their habits. The illness was a serial killer, and the victim was clear: older, male smokers with high cholesterol.
With time, death rates from heart disease and strokes have seen big declines. Now, the silent killer is making a comeback and has set its sights on a new victim.
“The population is getting more and more obese and they’re developing more bad habits, smoking for instance. More young people smoke today than in the recent past,” said Dr. Antoine Keller, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Baton Rouge General. “Young people think it’s cool to smoke and vape and do all these things. We have seen the incidents of cardiovascular disease increase because of that.”
Video: The Dangers of vaping
A survey done in 2018 says there has been a dramatic increase in young people across the country using e-cigarettes, popularly known as “vape pens” and “vapes.” Usage jumped from 11.7% in 2017 to 20.8% in 2018 among high school students. Among middle school aged kids, usage jumped from 3.3% in 2017 to 4.9% in 2018. It’s the newest form of an old habit.
Laws have been slow to catch up to prevent teens from unsupervised access to the devices, and kids aren’t always aware they can be just as detrimental to their health as a cigarette.
DR. KELLER’S NOTES ABOUT E CIGARETTES VAPE PENS:
- Smoking substitutes have a multitude of toxins that are just as bad as smoking cigarettes
- They may not contain as much tar or nicotine as the cigarettes, but they do have toxins and byproducts of the chemicals that are contained within these solutions that people smoke that are injurious to the cardiovascular system
- They chelate all the minerals out of your system
- They cause free radical injury and damage
- They hurt the lungs and cardiovascular system as well
“They’re not safer than cigarettes. They’re not an appropriate substitute for cigarettes because they’re just as harmful to your body as cigarettes are. Some of them are more harmful to your body than cigarettes are,” said Keller. Read more here
