Change Your Brain Every Day - Can Vaping Lead to Cigarette Smoking? PT.3 With Dr. Jennifer Farrell

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

E-cigarettes has become increasingly popular among today’s teens. Companies like Juul are producing E-cigarettes that come in many flavors, and that are less harmful than cigarettes. But what are the drawbacks? In the last episode of a series with addiction specialist Dr. Jennifer Farrell, Dr. Daniel Amen dives into the subject of vaping to determine the effects it has on teens and adults alike.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. And stay tuned for a special code for a discount to Amen Clinics for a full evaluation, as well as any of our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Welcome back. We are here with Dr. Jennifer Farrell, addictionologist at Amen Clinics in Southern California back. We are here with Dr. Jennifer Farrell, addictionologist at Amen Clinics in Southern California. Thank you for being with us. I'm so happy to be here. I'm

having so much fun. Today we're going to talk about smoking cigarettes versus vaping cigarettes. A new study found that e-cigarette use could do more harm than good by substantially increasing the number of adolescents and young adults who eventually become cigarette smokers, but only marginally decrease the number of adult cigarette smokers who quit. So vaping, that was not even a term when I was doing my psychiatric residency. Right. I mean, this is relatively new and we've been scrambling to get data on this for years. I go to addiction medicine conferences all the time. And so we're trying to get data and it's so new, it's hard to get long-term data on this. So recently, it seems that we're

kind of... The data's going in two directions. The study that you're referring to is looking at the population as a whole. What is e-cigarettes doing to it? And as a whole, e-cigarettes are actually, instead of decreasing smoking, overall increasing because of this effect in adolescents and young adults. They are more likely to pick up cigarette smoking starting with vaping. There is a category of adults who've been smoking for years who can use vaping as a harm reduction model. Some will get on vaping and then slowly decrease the amount of nicotine they have in their cartridges and attempt to get off. Some people are addicted to the nicotine,

but it's thought to be safer than smoking the cigarette. Because you're not inhaling as many poisons. Right. We don't, however, know the long-term effects of the propylene glycol that's used in the vaping. So you have this coil that heats up and you have this chemical that takes the liquid into the vapor. And so we don't know yet what the long-term effects of that will be, but it's thought that it's probably safer than the

cigarette, the tobacco itself. But the problem is... Isn't it true that heating it up and and inhaling heated air is damaging the very sensitive lung tissue and producing oxidation in your lungs. Well, it can. And I mean, anything that you smoke is going to be heated, right? You know, so the cigarettes burning, the pipes, the everything, you know, is having that same effect. Certainly, smoking cessation is the safest thing to do. The problem is with the young people, it's become cool. And so it's hard for us old people to fight the cool. But when kids talk about vaping- I'm glad you put yourself in the same category as me, even though I'm probably 20 years older than you.

Good. Well, we'll remind everyone that you're 20 years older than me. But these kids, they have these flavored ones, and they're actually put in these little things called jewels, and they have all these names, and they're colorful, and they're flavored. So describe to everybody what jewels, what is that? So they have all these different vaping pipes or vapes or whatever you call them come in different shapes and sizes. They look like candy. They're in multiple colors. I was just shocked to see this weekend they actually have a small cartridge that looks like a USB port.

And you plug it into the side of your computer. So your teacher in school thinks you just have a USB port in there. And you're actually charging it, and then you can go out and vape in between. They're flavored, they're colored and so kids are picking up on this and they tell people, oh no it's just flavors. They all contain nicotine and so they're getting exposed and they're getting addicted when their brains are young, when they can't really make the decisions that adults make and they can't get off of it and vaping can be nicotine can also be caffeine there I did a show with dr. Oz where we actually did a quantitative EEG on him before and

then while he was vaping caffeine how It was really interesting. And his visual cortex lit up and his thoughtful cortex went down. So as I described it to him, you'll see the cute assistant at work and you're much more likely to make a bad decision with her that could cost you a lot of money. Gosh, there's just so many ways to poison ourselves, isn't there? This is true. And what do you think's an effective prevention model for these kids? So, you know, they found actually that D.A.R.E. didn't work in school. No, it actually increased the rates of substance use, and they didn't want to talk about that because that was bad PR,

but some studies showed actually increased rates of substance use for kids who had gone through the D.A.R.E. program compared to their peers who hadn't. When we look at young people who smoke, we're looking at peers and what their peers are doing, and we're looking at a group of people who frequently want to feel that they're in opposition to authority or their parents. They're kind of independent, making their own roles. So addressing those things is key. How do we get our kids in with healthy peers? How do we encourage healthy peer networks?

And then when our kids feel that they need to rebel, how do we give them decision-making abilities that don't involve drugs or nicotine or too much caffeine? So having conversations with them is very helpful. While we're kind of on that line of thinking, there actually are a few websites that could be helpful. While we're kind of on that line of thinking, there actually are a few websites that could be helpful if anyone has kids who are struggling with using these vapes or cigarette smoking. One is called, the website is the 84.org, and it's the number 84, the 84.org. And this is a

teen-driven website that's an anti-smoking and so it's young people reaching out to young people and so that's a great resource. There's also an app called Quit Start and it's a free app that you can download to a smartphone and it's geared towards teens. So there are some specific resources and the NIDA also has the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has some resources for teens as well who want to quit. Prevention is the best. So we also have our high school course, Brain Thrive by 25, which actually we give away to people. It's 12 weeks, 24 hours. You can get three college units of credit as a charge for that. But I mean, I get three college units of credit as a charge for that. But, I mean, I get three college units of credit.

And we had an independent group from us study it. Decreased drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, decreased depression, and improved self-esteem. Because we believe it should start by falling in love with your brain. And then asking yourself, is this good for my brain or bad for it? So not telling kids bad, bad, bad, you shouldn't do it. But rather, your brain's involved in everything you do. How you think, how you feel, how you act. It's your brain that gets you a date.

It's your brain that gets you into college. It's your brain that makes money. Brain gets you independence with your parents or makes them want to watch your every move. It's your brain. And then we show them healthy scans surrounded by drug-affected scans. And we just ask the simple question, which brain do you want? And so then they really see it's not about don't do this, don't do this, don't do that. It's what do you want? Will this get you what you want? Exactly. There's so much in life to be excited about. And I talk to

adolescents and college students who come to see me all the time about how exciting this stage in life really is. There's a whole world of possibilities. Smoking can be very limiting to some people. It cuts down on their brain power. And people who smoke and who smell like smoke don't have the same business opportunities. And it changes people's social networking. And life can be fun. There's a lot of opportunity. There's a lot of fun to be had. And so I think young people really need to be encouraged to hold on to their health so they can explore all these fun areas in life. So one of my favorite stories about this is there's a world famous actress, music person, singer. And she and I became friends a long time ago.

And she just went off the deep end, smoking pot like crazy. And we published a study about a year and a half ago on a thousand pot smokers showing every area of their brain was lower. And so I sent her the study and she texted me back and she said, no way. And I texted her back way. Absolutely true. And she stopped and she actually went public with stopping and her career has just done so much better since she stopped. And last summer I was, I spoke at the University of Massachusetts to 7,000 teenagers and their

parents and she gave me permission to share the story. And so I text her right before my talk. I said, are you having more fun with your good habits or the bad ones? And she texted me right back and she goes, ha, good by a billion. And that's what people don't understand. We're not trying to deprive you of anything except dementia and depression and and obesity, and stupidity. I mean, we want to deprive you of those. We want you to have a full, happy life when your brain works right.

And how many patients, you know, maybe you can think of a patient whose brain wasn't right and the devastation. Oh, absolutely. People come into us because they're devastated. You know, people don't come in with years of heroin use happy. You know, they come in because they're absolutely miserable. The addiction takes over. Nicotine takes over. You aren't in control of your smoking.

The smoking controls you, and it dictates how long you're willing to sit on an airplane, where you're willing to go. I've had patients on cannabis and they said, oh, my whole family's going to Mexico, but I can't go because I can't take my weed. Okay. Let's have a discussion about this. It limits them. Absolutely. Have you had the discussion where people say they feel more creative when they are smoking dope or doing mushrooms. What do you say? Well, so some people can be creative and that's great. But a lot of times people think they're being creative. So I say, okay, if you're going to work

when you're high, then I want you to sit down when you aren't and let's go over that work that you did. Let's look at that paper you wrote. Let's listen to that song you wrote. Let's watch that video clip you produced for your, you know, theater class. Let's take a look at that and see. Because a lot of times, you know, when people are high, they feel like they're geniuses. And when they sit down and look at it, they realize it's sloppy, they're not on point, and they're not really conveying the best of themselves. Yeah, I know a lot of my ADD patients, when they say, oh, well, I don't ever want to take medicine because I don't want to be someone different. And my response is, well, don't you want to be

who you are when your brain works right? And the problem, it's true with some psychiatric meds and a lot of the substances of abuse is they change your brain in an insidious way and that they require your, they will make it so they will require your brain to need that substance in order for you to feel normal. So after people get over the high and they get addicted, they end up chasing not the high, they end up chasing feeling normal. Exactly. And what you can see with SPECT imaging, when let's say cannabis and people say, oh, it's so innocuous, there's nothing wrong with cannabis. Wrong.

But when you look at the scans over time, what do you see? Those orbital frontal cortex, that frontal lobe is shutting down. So yes, you may be more creative today, but guess what? Long-term use, you lose motivation. You become more lethargic. You lose your drive. And that's why they used to call it dope. Now heroin's dope. It gets very confusing keeping up with all of this. But over time, it actually erodes that part of the brain that has to do with planning, motivation, judgment.

And so over time, it really does a lot more harm than good. Wow. It's been such a joy to have you with us. We will have you back as always. Stay with us. You're listening to The Brain Warrior's Way. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com

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