Health
Young vaper who required double lung transplant shares warnings as e-cigarette sales rise
MINNEAPOLIS – E-cigarette sales are climbing — and it’s primarily young people who are getting hooked.
Those between the ages of 18 and 24 vape the most, but 9% of youth between 11 and 15 years old say they’re regular vapors, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
One of them, 22-year-old Jackson Allard of North Dakota, almost lost his life due to his vaping habit — and now he’s warning others of the dangers.
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Besides leading to addiction, vaping can cause permanent lung damage, according to the CDC.
Last October, Allard developed parainfluenza, which led to pneumonia and then acute respiratory distress syndrome. His lungs were full of fluid.
Jackson Allard, pictured, was in the hospital for three months before he was healthy enough to qualify as a transplant recipient. Now he meets weekly with other lung transplant recipients for rehab. “I’m the youngest person by far, so it’s a little weird,” Allard said. (Doreen Hurlburt )
“I was really sick, barely able to sleep, puking constantly,” Allard told Fox News.
The young man was on ECMO, a form of life support, for 70 days.
“I had a 1% chance to live,” Allard said.
His lungs were damaged so badly that in Jan. 2024, he received a double lung transplant — a rare procedure for someone his age.
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“The first thing that went through my head was, ‘Can I live a normal life after this?’” Allard said.
Allard and his family live in Fargo, North Dakota, but they’re renting an apartment in Minneapolis while he recovers from his transplant.
Twice a week, he attends rehabilitation and gets weekly bloodwork. He also gets his PICC line, a tube connected to his veins for long-term medication, cleaned each week. Allard takes 30 pills a day and his family is responsible for giving him his IV medication.
“I had a 1% chance to live.”
Based on his doctors’ input, Allard and his grandmother, Doreen Hurlburt, believe vaping is to blame for his lung failure.
“When I first started vaping, I was probably 14. I was pretty much non-stop doing it,” Allard said. He later started using a weed vape as well.
“I told my friend who smokes weed, I was like, ‘Be careful with that,’” Allard said, suggesting that people use marijuana gummies instead of vapes.
“It’s just scary to know that we can make a misstep and cause something bad to happen,” said Doreen Hurlburt, Jackson’s grandmother, pictured here. (Mills Hayes/Fox News)
His grandmother, Doreen Hurlburt, said she complained daily about Jackson’s vaping habits.
“Multiple doctors said, ‘If you smoke cigarettes for 50 years, we’ll see you with lung cancer, and if you vape for five years, we’ll see you with permanent lung damage,’” Hurlburt told Fox News.
Allard can’t drink alcohol or smoke, and his weakened immune system means he has to avoid big crowds.
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Dr. Brooke Moore, a pediatric pulmonologist at Children’s Minnesota, did not treat Allard but often sees patients with vaping-related lung injuries.
“We’ve seen kids who have been vaping for short periods of time, and not necessarily with heavy use, come in with pretty significant lung injury from that,” Moore told Fox News.
Most of Allard’s friends just turned 21 and all go out to the bars — but after his double lung transplant, he’s not allowed to drink or be in crowded places. “It’s the social aspect that I’m kind of worried about,” he told Fox News. (Mills Hayes/Fox News)
The majority of the patients Moore sees with vaping-related issues are between 16 and 19 years old.
Some patients have lung injury and others have milder respiratory symptoms.
“We’ve done a very good job of educating youth about not starting to smoke traditional tobacco-based cigarettes,” Moore said.
“With vaping products, we don’t have as much long-term data, but in the short term, the risk seems to be as high as cigarettes — and I would argue in some cases worse.”
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Moore said her patients typically vape THC and nicotine.
“It doesn’t seem to be that vaping just nicotine or just THC is less of a risk for lung disease than one or the other,” she said.
Most vaping patients have some underlying mental health concerns, such as anxiety, depression or a combination of those, the doctor noted.
Dr. Brook Moore, pictured here, said patients will come in with a cough and shortness of breath due to vaping. “They’ve created flavors and advertising that mimics a lot of the things that kids, teenagers and young adults like to use,” she said about the manufacturers. (Mills Hayes/Fox News)
“They’re using their vape products to self-medicate,” Moore said. “It shows there is a much bigger issue at play than just people vaping to vape.”
In 2019, there was an outbreak of e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury, or EVALI. Those cases were linked to vitamin E acetate in vaping products.
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As of Feb. 2020, more than 2,800 patients had been admitted to various hospitals in the U.S. due to EVALI, with 68 deaths reported.
But in 2020, the CDC stopped tracking EVALI cases.
That’s when Johns Hopkins Children’s Center Dr. Christy Sadreameli started to pay more attention.
Many of the vape products commonly sold are “kind of on the market illegally,” a doctor warned. (iStock)
“If you were to ask me how many cases of EVALI happen every year in the U.S., we don’t know that anymore,” Sadreameli told Fox News Digital.
“It’s definitely still out there. And I’m still concerned about it.”
Many of the vape products commonly sold are “kind of on the market illegally,” Sadreameli added.
“They’re on the market without approval and without undergoing review.”
“They haven’t gone through the FDA review or approval process, and it’s hard to enforce something like that. These things were already being sold,” she continued.
“They’re kind of on the market without approval and without undergoing review. So that’s kind of messed up.”
Symptoms of vaping-related lung injury include coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, fever or gastrointestinal symptoms, according to WebMD.
If people who often vape are experiencing a combination of those symptoms, they should see a doctor as soon as possible, experts advise.
Patients who want to quit can work with their doctor to make a plan.
There are also cessation support groups and programs available.
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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