(Press-News.org) Teenagers are very familiar with the risks of smoking cigarettes, but are much less sure whether marijuana or e-cigarettes are harmful, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
While adolescents get clear messages from their families, teachers, peers and the media about the harms of smoking cigarettes, they receive conflicting or sparse information about the harms of marijuana and e-cigarettes, the study showed.
The findings will be published online June 23 in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
"Kids were really good at describing the harmful things that happen with cigarette smoking, but when we asked about other products, there was a lot of confusion," said the study's lead author, Maria Roditis, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in adolescent medicine.
"We're good at delivering messaging that cigarettes are harmful, but we need to do a better job with other products that teens may smoke," added Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, professor of pediatrics in adolescent medicine and the study's senior author. "We don't want the message kids get to be 'cigarettes are bad, so everything else might be OK.'"
Tripling of e-cigarette use
Halpern-Felsher and Roditis compared teens' knowledge of cigarettes, e-cigarettes and marijuana because they heard from teachers, parents and youth that anti-smoking efforts needed to address more than just conventional cigarettes. The need is borne out by other research: A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control shows that middle- and high-school students' use of e-cigarettes tripled from 2013 to 2014, eclipsing conventional cigarettes as the most common tobacco product in this age group.
Halpern-Felsher and Roditis studied 24 adolescents who attended high school in a Northern California school district known to have high rates of substance use. The students participated in small-group discussions about their perceptions of the risks and benefits of conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes and marijuana. They also discussed how they learned about these products. The researchers analyzed the themes that emerged in the discussions.
Students perceived little or no benefit, as well as several detrimental effects, of smoking conventional cigarettes, such as yellowed teeth, bad breath and long-term disease risk. They also said their social norms often discouraged smoking conventional cigarettes. For instance, even smoking marijuana rolled in paper was considered weird because it looks like a cigarette.
Perceptions versus reality
However, students saw getting high as a benefit to smoking marijuana, and perceived it as safer and less addictive than tobacco. They were unsure whether marijuana posed health risks, and also described being under peer pressure to smoke marijuana.
With respect to e-cigarettes, students perceived some benefits, including thinking e-cigarettes looked good, and were unsure of the risks.
Students' sources of information about the three products were varied. The media, families and teachers all warned against the use of conventional cigarettes. Students also got messages from these sources discouraging use of marijuana, but said it was difficult to refuse the drug because its use was so prevalent among their peers. Students received few, mostly informal, messages about e-cigarettes: They said they saw family members using them to try to quit conventional cigarettes, and also saw peers using them.
The findings could help shape future messages about marijuana and e-cigarettes, the study's authors said. For instance, students need to hear about the addictive potential of both products; about the risks of smoking any form of plant matter, which is similar between conventional cigarettes and marijuana; and about the presence of nicotine in e-cigarettes. In addition, flavorants in e-cigarettes may raise the risk of obstructive lung disease.
"Students hear a lot of talk about conventional cigarettes, some about marijuana and very little about e-cigarettes," Halpern-Felsher said. "That gap needs to be filled in classrooms and by health-care providers, parents and the media. We don't want to leave one product behind and leave teens with the impression that, 'Maybe this is the product I can use.'"
INFORMATION:
Roditis was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California-San Francisco while the data was being collected. The study was funded by National Cancer Institute (grant CA-113710).
More information about the Department of Pediatrics, which also supported the research, is available at http://pediatrics.stanford.edu.
The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://med.stanford.edu/school.html. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. For information about all three, please visit http://med.stanford.edu.
Stanford University researchers studying how the brain controls movement in people with paralysis, related to their diagnosis of Lou Gehrig's disease, have found that groups of neurons work together, firing in complex rhythms to signal muscles about when and where to move.
"We hope to apply these findings to create prosthetic devices, such as robotic arms, that better understand and respond to a person's thoughts," said Jaimie Henderson, MD, professor of neurosurgery.
A paper describing the study will be published online June 23 in eLife. Henderson, who holds the ...
A review of medical records for almost 200 patients with breast cancer suggests that more selective use of biomarker testing for such patients has the potential to save millions of dollars in health care spending without compromising care, according to Johns Hopkins researchers.
Specifically, waiting to perform these tests until a patient has a full excisional biopsy instead of "reflexively" or automatically testing for them on initial small "core" biopsies could save as much as $117 million, according to a report on the study published in the July issue of The American ...
A global taskforce of 174 scientists from leading research centres across 28 countries studied the link between mixtures of commonly encountered chemicals and the development of cancer. The study selected 85 chemicals not considered carcinogenic to humans and found 50 supported key cancer-related mechanisms at exposures found in the environment today.
Longstanding concerns about the combined and additive effects of everyday chemicals prompted the organisation Getting To Know Cancer led by Lowe Leroy from Halifax Nova Scotia, to put the team together - pitching what is ...
Researchers at University of California, Berkeley have taken inspiration from the cockroach to create a robot that can use its body shape to manoeuvre through a densely cluttered environment.
Fitted with the characteristic rounded shell of the discoid cockroach, the running robot can perform a roll manoeuvre to slip through gaps between grass-like vertical beam obstacles without the need for additional sensors or motors.
It is hoped the robot can inspire the design of future terrestrial robots to use in a wide variety of scenarios, from monitoring the environment to ...
The gut microbe Akkermansia muciniphila may hold the key to better metabolic health and healthier body fat distribution in people who are overweight or obese, reveals a small study published online in the journal Gut.
The microbe seems to be linked to lower levels of fasting blood glucose and fats--key factors involved in the development of diabetes and heart disease--and healthier distribution of body fat, the findings indicate.
In healthy people A. muciniphila makes up around 3-5% of the gut's bacterial ecosystem and is associated with a diet rich in insoluble fibre.
The ...
Squatting in 'skinny' jeans for a protracted period of time can damage muscle and nerve fibres in the legs, making it difficult to walk, reveals a case study published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
Doctors describe a case of a 35 year old woman who arrived at hospital with severe weakness in both her ankles. The previous day she had been helping a relative move house, and had spent many hours squatting while emptying cupboards.
She had been wearing tight 'skinny' jeans and recalled that these had felt increasingly tight and uncomfortable ...
New findings may help ease concerns for women with lupus who are interested in having a child. A new study concludes that most women with lupus whose disease is not very active will have a safe pregnancy. The results are to publish online June 22 in Annals of Internal Medicine.
It was previously suggested that women with lupus avoid pregnancy because of serious complications to their own health and the health of the baby. As more knowledge became available, doctors told women with lupus to wait until symptoms were under control, but until now, it was still uncertain whether ...
BOSTON -- An expert panel convened by the Institute of Medicine clarified the cognitive aging process by making a distinction from Alzheimer disease and related dementias, and provided recommendations to enhance cognitive health in older adults. Now a new article published in Annals of Internal Medicine highlights key points of that report and serves as a guide for health care professionals seeking to improve the quality of life of older adults by maintaining brain health.
Practitioners define "cognition" as mental functions encompassing attention, thinking, understanding, ...
As a new physician in Galway, Ireland, and then as a nephrology fellow at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Michelle O'Shaughnessy, MD, began to wonder whether similar treatment plans for all patients whose kidneys had failed was necessarily the best practice.
"I was struck by my patients, who were often young and on dialysis at the age of 23 or 24," O'Shaughnessy said, referring to patients whose kidneys had failed because of glomerulonephritis, a group of rare disorders that damage the kidney's ability to filter the blood.
"I thought there should be other ...
The results of a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial of patients undergoing elective pulmonary resection was designed to evaluate the effects of statin therapy. Unfortunately, because of difficulties in enrolling patients who had never taken statins, the study was terminated early, and the sample size was smaller than anticipate. Trends in the data suggesting differences between groups failed to reach statistical significance except in a post-hoc analysis. The accompanying Editorial Commentary by Dr. Betty Tong emphasizes the potential importance ...
