A mudslide of bad news about vaping

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire — and then after wildfires often come the rains and all-too-lethal mudslides.

Well, the same is true for vaping. It turns out that mudslides of information are piling up about the serious health problems associated with firing up e-cigs.

At first, no one was sure if vaping was bad for you, at least compared with smoking tobacco. In the 2010 movie “The Tourist,” Frank (Johnny Depp) says, while smoking an e-cigarette, “It delivers the same amount of nicotine, but the smoke is water vapor.” But inhaling any batch of ignited chemicals is destructive to lung tissue.

It’s even worse than we thought: New research from the U.K. shows that not only does vaping cause destructive lung-cell inflammation, it also can shut down your lungs’ protective cells that ward off bacteria and allergens (researchers used the phrase “impaired bacterial clearance”).

Plus, research recently presented at the American Chemical Society says that e-cigs can damage DNA in your oral cells, upping your risk of mouth and throat cancers. And then there’s mounting evidence that vapers have double the risk of heart disease and heart attack compared with people who don’t smoke anything. Cigarette use triples the risk.

And yet another study found that people who used e-cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes daily (many do) were five times more likely to have a heart attack than those who had never used either.

Mehmet Oz, M.D., is host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” and Mike Roizen, M.D., is Chief Wellness Officer and Chair of Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic. Email questions to youdocsdaily@sharecare.com.