Teens using e-cigs are more likely to smoke cigarettes

In a shocking revelation, a study warns that teenagers aged between 17 and 18 who use e-cigarettes, a practice referred as vaping, in high school are four times more likely to start smoking cigarettes a year later.

According to researchers, vaping is a "one-way bridge" to cigarette smoking for teenagers in the study published in journal Tobacco Control.

"This paper just shows that teenagers who try cigarettes are more likely to also try e-cigarettes (and the other way round) compared to teenagers who do not do such things. This is trivial," said Peter Hajek from Queen Mary University of London.

They examined whether vaping was a predictor of future cigarette smoking among 17 and 18-year-olds.

They examined 350 teens from a larger survey of 122 schools around the country.

The participants were first surveyed on their smoking and vaping habits in 12th grade and then surveyed them again one year later.

Among teens who said they vaped in the 12th grade but had never tried a tobacco cigarette, 31 percent went on to try tobacco cigarettes in the next year, the study found.

In contrast, among teens who had not vaped or smoked tobacco cigarettes in the 12th grade, just seven percent went on to try tobacco cigarettes in the next year, the survey revealed.

"These results contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting vaping as a one-way bridge to cigarette smoking among youth," the authors said.

"This article is the latest American study to claim that using an e-cigarette can lead to tobacco smoking in teenagers - in fact the authors go as far as to describe it as a 'one way bridge' to smoking," said Linda Bauld from the University of Stirling in UK.

"While we don't want to encourage that, the key public health priority is to prevent young people from starting to smoke, a habit that eventually kills one in two regular smokers.