Vaping by young people remains a burning issue among health experts

Despite much debate in UK and US there is still little agreement over how safe e-cigarettes are

Sifting through contradictory evidence is common when it comes to choosing the right thing to do to improve our health, not least at new year when many of us promise to leave old habits behind and make a fresh start. One topic that is almost guaranteed to provoke arguments is e-cigarettes. Thousands of research papers have been published about these devices over the past decade. But we do not seem to be much closer to a global consensus on their risks or benefits, and arguably the debate is becoming more entrenched. What is going on?

A number of factors appear to be fuelling this, but in 2018 one more than any other seemed to be driving the debate. It relates to the consequences of e-cigarette use by young people, and the extent that youth vaping will lead to smoking. In other words: are e-cigarettes creating a new generation of nicotine users, and will these vapers become the smokers of the future?