Individuals who use vapes or e-cigarettes increase their risk of experiencing aggravated COVID-19 symptoms, experts said.
Dr. Robert Vassallo of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said that their research was not designed to test whether e-cigarette use increases the risk of acquiring “COVID infection, but it clearly indicates that symptom burden in patients with COVID-19 who vape is greater than in those who do not vape.”
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E-cigarette users infected with the coronavirus may be more likely than infected non-vapers to experience COVID-19 symptoms and researchers compared 289 vapers with 1,445 people of similar age and gender who neither vaped nor smoked tobacco, all of whom had tested positive for the coronavirus on PCR tests.
After comparing infected non-vapers and after accounting for participants’ other risk factors, infected vapers experienced higher rates of chest pain or tightness (16 percent versus 10 percent), chills (25 percent versus 19 percent), body aches (39 percent versus 32 percent), headaches (49 percent versus 41 percent), problems with smell and taste (37 percent versus 30 percent), nausea/vomiting/abdominal pain (16 percent versus 10 percent), diarrhea (16 percent versus 10 percent) and light-headedness (16 percent versus 9 percent).
The research, published in the Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review.
