Show notes
Do you know the signs to watch for if you suspect your young teen might be vaping? Do you want to talk to your teen about it, but don’t know where to begin? On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with a doctor from Intermountain Health Riverton Hospital, who gives us some strategies for approaching the subject of vaping. Find out why it’s a conversation that could save your teen from some serious health complications now and in the future, due to what doctors say are the real dangers of vaping. Audio Transcription Anthony Godfrey:What are the negative impacts that you see, especially in youth, as a result of vaping? Dr. Blagev:The analogy was smoking. It took decades for us to be able to understand kind of the longer term COPD, lung cancer, heart disease risk. The other category I worry about is the lifelong addiction. [Music] Anthony Godfrey:Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Do you know the signs to watch for if you suspect your teen may be vaping? Do you want to talk with your teen about vaping but don't know where to begin? On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with a physician from Intermountain Health Riverton Hospital, who gives us some strategies for approaching the subject of vaping. Find out why it's a conversation that could save your teen from serious health complications now and in the future due to what doctors say are the real dangers of vaping. [Music] Anthony Godfrey:We're here with Dr. Blagev, the chief medical officer at Riverton Hospital, to talk about vaping. Thanks very much for taking time. Dr. Blagev:Thanks so much for inviting me. Anthony Godfrey:Tell me, what are the negative impacts that you see, especially in youth, as a result of vaping? Dr. Blagev:You know, one point overall for negative impact is that we're still learning about them. So if you think about the analogy with smoking, it took decades for us to be able to understand kind of the longer term COPD, lung cancer, heart disease risks. So I would say that we're still learning about these longer term effects. In terms of the more immediate effects, we do know, we know that there's a range of kind of immediate severe effects and that would be where e-valley, so e-cigarette or vaping associated lung injury, would be in that category. That was in the news a few years ago where young people otherwise healthy vape, and then have really devastating lung disease and even might die from that. And that's one big concern because of the severity. Not the most common concern actually, but quite severe. The other category I worry about is the lifelong addiction. And that's really when you think about a broad population getting children hooked on this and more than even the nicotine or the THC per se, it's also teaching them kind of coping skills for life with this thing. And that's the thing that makes it sort of lifelong for them. You know, we did a study of people who had lung disease, you know, e-valley, right? Like the most severe consequence of vaping, the most immediate, you're not talking about lung cancer in 20 years, life changing, right? Like in an ICU, super sick, directly linked to vaping. And when we followed these people out a year or two later, you know, only about 40% were able to quit all vaping and smoking. So you think about how ingrained that is for them and how challenging it is to quit. That's kind of what they've reached for or how they've learned to cope or to deal with anxiety or with life. And I think that's sort of the big question, is how do you address those underlying issues to help people not pick it up? Anthony Godfrey:And that is what we focus on as district is trying to help connect families and students to resources that can help address the underlying issues that drive a student to vape. And it's chilling what you've pointed out that once a student starts, once a child starts to vape, there can be severe medical impact. And despite that very clear evidence that vaping is damaging their lungs, making their quality of life go down, stepping away from vaping is just very difficult. And Jordan School District has actually been involved in a class-action lawsuit and was successful in receiving a settlement, as many other districts did nationwide, in fighting the advertising and marketing to teens that had happened with Juul and other and other manufacturers. So we've been actively working against that. The interesting thing is we do have some detectors out there, but they're, like you said, it's so new that there aren't even reliable detectors. But we really do try to identify the students who suffer from that addiction and really try to address not just that issue, but the underlying issues and the access, where are the access points, how are they able to get this. Now some parents listening may not know the varieties that are available or all the ways that vaping is made enticing to teens. Can you describe how flavors and devices and all of that factor into the allure? Dr. Blagev:Yeah, you know it's so interesting because if you look at the uptick of vaping, it really follows kind of the blueprint for how smoking cigarettes was made into a thing, right? Like down to the, it's sexy to be smoking. So now, you know, there's regulations around cigarettes and movies and social media and advertising and really vaping exploited the lack of regulation. So you would have social media influencers and others where people are vaping. It's the cool, hip, new thing. It's for young people. I think one of the things about vaping is it often gets sold as this kind of harm reduction intervention. So you have someone who's, you know, they've started smoking when they were nine buying cigarettes for their dad and now they're 70 and they've been smoking their entire life and it's so hard to quit smoking. The vaping is this harm reduction we can switch to. And that's fine if it's effective and it depends where you are and what the nicotine content is and the context on whether or not it's effective. But that's not their big market. The big market is getting a bunch of young people to start vaping because it's hip, it's cool, their friends are doing it, celebrities are doing it, it looks modern, it has all kinds of appealing flavors and that's the thing that drives it, right? And it's high-tech, right? It's not this old thing. It looks, you know, like USB ports or technology. Anthony Godfrey:Paper is not involved. Dr. Blagev:Yeah. So it's really, and it's not this, you know, it's kind of like the cartoon characters that were selling cigarettes in the old days, right? It's not this accidental thing where adults are making a rational choice. It's really pretty targeted, effective advertising to children. Like that's when people start and build these habits that make their life love. Dr. Blagev:And we're better at impacting behavior than we've ever been. There are more methods of doing that, more points of access through social media and just through the internet. Yeah, and you referenced if you can get someone started when they're young, then you have a lifelong customer and the advertising has been pretty targeted at teens or it was before more regulation came into place. Anthoy Godfrey:Stay with us when we come back. More information about vaping from Intermountain Healthcare. [Music] Male voice:Never miss an episode of The Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org. [Music] Female voice:In Jordan School District, we like to support students in and outside the classroom along with their families. That's where the Jordan Family Education Center comes in, offering support services and a wide variety of classes for students and their families free of charge. You can take a class called Blues Busters for children feeling sad or worried. Just Breathe is a class that helps students reduce stress. Or how about a class that supports parents in helping their children make and keep good friends. There are also support groups and free counseling, all provided by Jordan School District school psychologists and counselors. To find out how you can benefit from free family support services offered by the Jordan Family Education Center, call 801-565-7442 or visit guidance.jordandistrict.org. [Music] Anthony Godfrey:What are the trends you're seeing lately as a medical professional? Dr. Blagev:Yeah, and I'll specify, you know, I'm an adult pulmonary critical care physician and so we are certainly seeing people who vape who come into the intensive care unit. And we certainly know that vaping increases your risk for pneumonia, bronchitis and other kind of lung problems. We are not seeing the levels of kind of acute lung injury related to vaping that we were seeing back in 2019. So that's positive. Anthony Godfrey:Good. That's good. Dr. Blagev:So that's great. We still see it occasionally, so it's still a thing. It's not, you know, it's not that vaping is safe. And then, you know, some of the surveys out there are coming out that maybe indicate that kids are not continuing to go up enough in terms of vaping. But I think it's hard to know what the data is really telling us whether we had less reporting with COVID and what the, you know, whether that's kind of validated. But I don't know, what are you seeing in schools? Is there a sense that there's fewer kids vaping or is there a sense that it's still increasing? Anthony Godfrey:It depends on where you are. And it also is difficult to get good data on that. Like you said, they're always getting it secondhand. They're never buying it directly. So we don't have statistics that way. But, you know, you're always worried about the student that you know is vaping. And so I don't know that I could say anything more broadly about that, just that it's an ongoing issue for sure, something we worry about. And we hear specifically from parents about the bathroom. My child goes into the bathroom and their kids vaping in the bathroom. So that's where we've tried to have detectors. We're still looking for the right detector that we can deploy more broadly. We've piloted them in some schools. But more than anything, we have more mental health support in schools than we've ever had. And we have that starting at the elementary level. We've really bolstered that. We have a full-time counselor at every elementary school, full-time school psychologist as well. And nurses spread throughout the District so that we can try to address problems early on, help students who are dysregulated when they're very young, and teach every student the skills to get recombobulated, if you will, if you're feeling so discombobulated that you can reconnect and get back into balance so that they're not relying on vaping or other harmful methods of trying to feel better. Dr. Blagev:Yeah. I think that is so critical and so important because those pathways that you establish early on are really kind of what gets ingrained. And it's hard, you know, we can all change. It's a lot harder to change when it's something you've been doing your whole life. And, you know, vaping has subtlety. So, you know, we sort of have this big umbrella of vaping. But you can vape THC and you can vape nicotine and then you can vape all kinds of other stuff. And if you think about vaping THC so that is not legal in every state, it's not legal in Utah. And so how you're acquiring that and what's happening with that has a particular network effect. When we were seeing patients with e-valley, that was 85% people that were vaping THC. Nicotine is distinct. So, nicotine is the one. So, vaping nicotine is what gets sold as harm reduction for cutting back on smoking. In the UK where they have data that shows that in some cases that can be successful, the nicotine amount in vapes is regulated. And so you can't have, you know, more nicotine in your vape than you would in a regular cigarette. So, it's limited and regulated and nicotine is the thing that gets you really addicted. In the US, it's kind of the wild west. And so you have nicotine vapes that have high levels of nicotine that really get people addicted to the nicotine and the vaping that then drives that behavior. And in our kind of American studies, we're not seeing, you know, this great reduction in smoking. If you vape, we just see that people do both. They smoke and vape. Anthony Godfrey:Really? So, it's not a replacement. It actually increases the amount of nicotine in your system as a result of the amounts being unregulated. I didn't realize that. Dr. Blagev:And that's the other big issue, I would say, with even understanding the harms from vaping or the effects from vaping is it's sort of completely all over the place, you know? And even, you know, people can have vapes that they stuff with whatever and they're vaping all kinds of stuff. And so, even when you study what's the effect of vaping, you end up saying, you know, am I inhaling a bunch of like metal fumes from the heating element? And that can cause lung disease. And it's sort of like, well, it depends on which brand and what heating element and to what temperature and what all of that. And so, it becomes hard to know, you know, it's this big umbrella of junk that people are breathing in that has a variety of negative effects that we're going to be understanding for a long time. But maybe if nobody vapes, we don't need to understand them and we can just not see them. Anthony Godfrey:Sure. What are some of the misunderstandings out there, the misconceptions about vaping? You've talked a little bit about, first of all, the safety that this is a safe alternative. Well, you've talked about all of the harmful effects of vaping. What are some other misunderstandings or misconceptions around vaping? Dr. Blagev:I mean, I would say that's probably the biggest one that people look at it as it's like it's pretty safe. It's definitely safer than cigarettes. It's not a big deal. You know, we don't think of vaping as something that's necessarily hard to quit, right? Like where I feel like we're pretty aware that heroin's really hard to quit. Anthony Godfrey:We're pretty aware that there's no debate about that. I think there's some consensus around that. Dr. Blagev:Or like cigarettes, you know, like nicotine really hard to quit. But vaping, I don't think people view in the same way where that, you know, it's sort of like a thing I can do for fun. Like I can chew bubble gum and I'm not addicted to it. So I can vape, you know, some bubble gum flavor and it's not the end of the world. I'm just rebellious for a little bit or it's a cool thing to do, but it doesn't have the same, I would say, awareness about how it sets you up kind of down the road and that it's pretty hard to quit. And there's pretty good survey data about young people that try to quit and have a hard time quitting. So I would say that that's maybe the other big one. Anthony Godfrey:Which is a common misconception about a lot of things. My willpower will just allow me to stop. I can stop whenever I want to stop. But the best way for a teen to stop is never to start. Dr. Blagev:Yeah. Yeah. Anthony Godfrey:Let's talk about being a pulmonologist. What started you down that path for those parents who are…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
