Starting snuff early can increase the risk of asthma In Norway, about 16 per cent of the population snuff. It is most common among young men, but figures from Statistics Norway show that the proportion of young women who snort has increased greatly in recent years. At the same time, we still know quite a bit about how snus affects health: – People like to think that snus and e-cigarettes are better for health than cigarettes, but the truth is that we don’t know, because there is very little research into that, says research fellow Juan Pablo López-Cervantes at the Department of Global Health and Community Medicine, UiB. In his doctoral project, he takes a closer look at the health effects of snuff – especially whether early start of snuff use, i.e. before the age of 15, affects the risk of developing asthma and asthma symptoms. Girls more vulnerable when snus debuts early In a large, international study, they asked 9,000 people over the age of 15 to state their gender, whether they smoke or snuff, how old they were when they started snus and whether they experience asthma symptoms. The participants were from the Nordic countries and Estonia, and the data was collected between 2013 and 2016. Examples of asthma symptoms could be shortness of breath, wheezing, the experience of not being able to breathe and coughing, among others. They were also asked whether they experience asthma attacks, or use medication for asthma. 26 percent of the men and 14 percent of the women in the study started snuff before they were 15 years old: – The women who started before they were 15 years old had almost three times the risk of experiencing asthma symptoms compared to those who had never used snuff, López–Cervantes wins. The tendency was not as clear for men. Furthermore, the researchers saw no correlation with asthma symptoms in the participants if they started sniffing after the age of 15. Underpins the snus effect In order to investigate whether it is in fact the early start of snus that increases the risk of asthma, and not smoking, they also carried out an analysis where the smokers were excluded from the study. When you only included those who snuffed, the women who debuted early as snuff users still had three times the risk of having asthma: – This supports our hypothesis that it is actually the nicotine in the snuff that affects lung health, and not the smoke, says the fellow. Pointing to hormonal causes López-Cervantes is unsure why women are affected by the early use of snus, but not men. There could be several reasons, but it is not inconceivable that some of them are hormonal: – We know that women’s and men’s biology differs from each other. For example, as a rule, women reach puberty earlier, and this can help to influence the outcome, speculates the researcher. He adds that researchers in other studies have seen the same connection for early smoking initiation: the health effect is greater in women than in men. Not sure if snuff is better than smoke The report from the study is already almost ten years old, and the proportion of young snuff users has increased a lot since that time. At the same time, more and more snus products have appeared on the market. López-Cervantes believes it is important that people become aware of the possible negative health effects one exposes themselves to by using nicotine products such as snuff. – We must not forget that when smoking first came on the market, it was not until many years later that much was known about the strong negative health consequences it had. – Given the knowledge base we have as of today, we cannot state that snuffing is less harmful to health than smoking, says the fellow. – Young people should think twice before putting something like this in their mouths, he underlines. You can read the research article here.
ttn-69
Snus poses an asthma risk for young girls – news Vestland
