Do you know the signs to watch for if you suspect your young teen might be vaping? Do you want to talk to your teen about it, but don’t know where to begin?
On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with a doctor from Intermountain Health Riverton Hospital, who gives us some strategies for approaching the subject of vaping. Find out why it’s a conversation that could save your teen from some serious health complications now and in the future, due to what doctors say are the real dangers of vaping.


Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
What are the negative impacts that you see, especially in youth, as a result of vaping?
Dr. Blagev:
The analogy was smoking. It took decades for us to be able to understand kind of the longer term COPD, lung cancer, heart disease risk. The other category I worry about is the lifelong addiction.
[Music]
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Do you know the signs to watch for if you suspect your teen may be vaping? Do you want to talk with your teen about vaping but don't know where to begin? On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with a physician from Intermountain Health Riverton Hospital, who gives us some strategies for approaching the subject of vaping. Find out why it's a conversation that could save your teen from serious health complications now and in the future due to what doctors say are the real dangers of vaping.
[Music]
Anthony Godfrey:
We're here with Dr. Blagev, the chief medical officer at Riverton Hospital, to talk about vaping. Thanks very much for taking time.
Dr. Blagev:
Thanks so much for inviting me.
Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me, what are the negative impacts that you see, especially in youth, as a result of vaping?
Dr. Blagev:
You know, one point overall for negative impact is that we're still learning about them. So if you think about the analogy with smoking, it took decades for us to be able to understand kind of the longer term COPD, lung cancer, heart disease risks. So I would say that we're still learning about these longer term effects. In terms of the more immediate effects, we do know, we know that there's a range of kind of immediate severe effects and that would be where e-valley, so e-cigarette or vaping associated lung injury, would be in that category. That was in the news a few years ago where young people otherwise healthy vape, and then have really devastating lung disease and even might die from that. And that's one big concern because of the severity. Not the most common concern actually, but quite severe. The other category I worry about is the lifelong addiction. And that's really when you think about a broad population getting children hooked on this and more than even the nicotine or the THC per se, it's also teaching them kind of coping skills for life with this thing. And that's the thing that makes it sort of lifelong for them. You know, we did a study of people who had lung disease, you know, e-valley, right? Like the most severe consequence of vaping, the most immediate, you're not talking about lung cancer in 20 years, life changing, right? Like in an ICU, super sick, directly linked to vaping. And when we followed these people out a year or two later, you know, only about 40% were able to quit all vaping and smoking. So you think about how ingrained that is for them and how challenging it is to quit. That's kind of what they've reached for or how they've learned to cope or to deal with anxiety or with life. And I think that's sort of the big question, is how do you address those underlying issues to help people not pick it up?
Anthony Godfrey:
And that is what we focus on as district is trying to help connect families and students to resources that can help address the underlying issues that drive a student to vape.