A recent study found that new tobacco products like e-cigarette’s liquid contain toxic substances that can cause inflammation across multiple organ systems also increasing the risks of brain damage.
In April this year, the scientific journal eLife published a study on mice that indicated brain, lung, heart, and colon inflammation resulting from daily e-cigarette use. The author’s findings suggest that ‘daily use of pod-based e-cigarettes or e-cigarettes containing high levels of nicotinic salts over months to years, may cause inflammation in various organs, increasing the risk of disease and poor health.’
Experts said that since the advent of such emerging tobacco products in the markets (vaping, e-cigarettes) there has been a dramatic change in the way tobacco is used worldwide, marketing strategies, attitudes towards tobacco addiction and tobacco-related deaths.
Public health expert Dr Lelin Chowdhury told Bangladesh Post, “When many Asian countries are banning the use of e-cigarettes, our young people are largely depending on this. Demands from several organisations have been placed to ban e-cigarettes. As these products have long-term health effects those should be banned at the earliest.”
Currently, the use of e-cig Progga (Knowledge for Progress) and the Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA) have said that all vaping and marketing of e-cigarettes,
including e-cigarettes, need to be banned to protect Bangladesh's youth. In addition, to formulate and implement laws to ban the use of e-cigarettes assistance can be provided through regular monitoring and survey/ research.
In Bangladesh, 35 percent or about 36 million adults (Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), 2017) use tobacco. There are roughly ‘;.20 crore (20.6 percent) smokeless tobacco users and 1.92 crore (16 percent) smokers. In Bangladesh, the tobacco use rate among 13 year to 15-year-old students is 9.2 percent (Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) 2014).
